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THE PATHS OF GOODNESS 


Books by Father Garcsche 

Published by Bensiger Brothers 
In same Uniform Series 
each, $1.50 net; postage, 10 cents 

YOUR SOUL’S SALVATION, in¬ 
structions ON PERSONAL HOLINESS 
The author makes spirituality attractive, and 
chatting pleasantly with you, makes you feel 
that he is doing you good. 

YOUR INTERESTS ETERNAL, our 

SERVICE TO OUR HEAVENLY FATHER 
The Art of Forgiving—The Pjrio« ol a Boy— 
On Deceiving—Ohur UnsociabMity—Are a few 
of the topics directly and briefly treated. 

YOUR NEIGHBOR AND YOU. our 

DEALINGS WITH THOSE ABOUT US 
The clearly defined purpose of one’s duty 
to his fellowmen is set forth in a cherry, 
practical, inspiring way. 

THE MOST BELOVED WOMAN. 

THE PREROGATIVES AND GLORIES OF 
THE BLESSED MOTHER OF GOD 

With his usual power of simplifying Catholic 
tea'ching the author has treated this beautiful 
subject successfully. 

THE THINGS IMMORTAL, spiritual 

THOUGHTS FOR EVERYDAY READING 

Chapters of practical, everyday advice re¬ 
vealing the author’s understanding of the 
human heart and life as it is lived today. 

YOUR OWN HEART, some helps to 

UNDERSTAND IT 

The Articles in this book are meant to 
minister in some degree to our desire for self- 
knowledge and self-betterment and help one to 
make excursions into the interesting land of 
our own heart. 






MADONNA AND CHILD 
Raphael 




THE 

Paths of Goodness 

Some Helpful Thoughts 
' on Spiritual Progress 

BY 

REV. EDWARD F. GARESCHE, S.J. 

«» ^ j 



New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PRINTERS TO THE I PUBLISHERS OF 
HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE J BENZIGER’S MAGAZINE 


1920 







Umprimi ipoteat 


FRANCIS X. McMENAMY, SJ., 

Praep. Prov. Missourianiag. 


IRtbll ©bstat. 

ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D., 

Censor Ltbrorum. 


Imprimatur* 

4* PATRICK J. HAYES, D.D., 

Archbishop of New York. 


New York, August 12 . 1920 . 


g)CLA601719 


Copyright, 1920, by Benziger Brothers. 


TO THE MOST BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 
MYSTICAL ROSE 







PREFACE 


T here is a well-known law of economics 
that the demand creates the supply. 
This maxim has been notably verified 
in the present little series of talks on spiritual 
themes. When “Your Neighbor and You” 
was written, a good many years ago, it was 
put forth without the notion that this was 
to be the first of a succession of similar vol¬ 
umes. Yet as each successive book appeared, 
“Your SouPs Salvation,” “Your Interests 
Eternal,” “The Most Beloved Woman,” 
“Children of Mary,” “The Things Immor¬ 
tal,” and “Your Own Heart,” every one 
gave rise to the kind demand for yet another, 
and this will explain the appearance of this 
latest book, for which we have chosen the 
title, “The Paths of Goodness.” 

We take great pleasure in thanking again 
all those friends known and unknown, whose 
own goodness has made this series a success. 
We greet them all in the charity of Christ, 
and we ask earnestly a prayer from all who 
read these books for the writer thereof. May 
7 


8 Preface 

many be stirred by the old and blessed truths 
here pmt in a somewhat new dress of words, 
to take heart and go on courageously, step 
by step, in the paths of goodness. 


CONTENTS 


TACm 


Preface. 

• • 7 

Little by Little .... 

. . 11 

Our Troublesome Selves . 

22 

The Much Required . 

• • 32 

The Fool of the House 

• • 44 

Some Lenten Substitutes . 

• ■ 54 

Misinterpretations 

. . 64 

An Old-Fashioned Vice 

• • 73 

The Cynosure’s History . 

. . 81 

The Spirit of Christmas . 

• • 93 

On the Making of Faces 

104 

Blind Spots. 

. .114 

A Singular Way .... 

. . 125 

From Within. 

. . 127 

Together. 

129 

The Proper Stand . 

. . 132 


9 







lo Contenls 


rAGK 


Visiting the Orphanages . 

• 134 

In the Schools. 

• 136 

Our Singular Chances 

• 139 

Poor Children. 

. 141 

The Passing of Reverence 

• 143 

Shifting the Blame .... 

146 

Standardized. 

148 

One Word. 

• 

In Worse Case. 

• 154 

The Rush Cure. 

• 157 

The Pervading Passion 

• 159 

Her Proper Place .... 

. 163 






THE PATHS OF GOODNESS 

LITTLE BY LITTLE 


D iscouragement, as we have often 
said, is one of the greatest obstacles 
and dangers in our struggle toward 
goodness, and it is a great source of discour¬ 
agement to perceive that one has been trying 
a long time to become better and has gotten 
forward only a little. One looks back over 
the examinations of conscience, the good re¬ 
solves, the prayers and exercises and devo¬ 
tions, and thinks, ‘'What a vast deal of ef¬ 
fort and struggle for such a very little ap¬ 
parent accomplishment! Surely it is an ex¬ 
tremely disheartening thing to have tried for 
years and not to have completely corrected 
even a single defect!’' Frankly, such a real¬ 
ization zs discouraging. Unless we can for¬ 
tify ourselves by some true and apt reflec¬ 
tions of a cheerful hue we shall be hard hit 
by that dull sense of defeat which comes from 
realizing our little progress. To have gone 
on year after year honestly trying to be bet¬ 
ter, praying to be better and working to im¬ 
prove our life and character, and then to have 

II 


12 Little by Little 

gotten so little ahead after all, is in itself a 
highly disheartening affair. But is this com¬ 
mon experience in the spiritual life really a 
reason for discouragement *? To answer prop¬ 
erly we must understand some often over¬ 
looked, but very actual, laws of the spiritual 
life. 

To begin with, our spiritual life has got its 
laws and its ordinary course of progress just 
as has our physical existence. We must feed 
our soul as we must feed our body, in order 
that it may remain strong and vigorous. We 
must exercise our soul as we exercise our body 
to keep it fit and firm. Our soul has its times 
of distress just as our body has, when it needs 
particular care and solicitude, and sometimes 
the care of a physician; and there are spir¬ 
itual remedies for the soul just as there are 
cures for the body’s ailments. The compari¬ 
son is, of course, not complete; few compari¬ 
sons are. Our soul is a spirit, and the life of 
which we speak is a supernatural life. There¬ 
fore the nourishment of the soul is a super¬ 
natural nourishment, its exercises superna¬ 
tural exercises, and the remedies that it needs 
are remedies not of this earth. But still there 


Little by Little 13 

is a great deal of truth and light in the com¬ 
parison, and we can infer many things con¬ 
cerning the life of our soul from the physical 
life of our body. 

To begin with, the laws of growth of the 
soul, so far as concerns its faculties and 
powers, are a good deal like those of the body 
and its faculties. Our body grows strong or 
grows weak little by little in the ordinary 
course of events. If we wish to exercise our 
arm, let us say, and make it vigorous and 
strong as men do when they wish to play some 
game of strength and skill, we have to begin 
by very small increases and become more vig¬ 
orous little by little. 

Children who are growing rapidly show 
the swiftest change of all human develop¬ 
ment. How fast they gain weight and height! 
Yet who could possibly notice their growth 
from day to day*? Even they develop little 
by little. 

It is so in all human growth. The law of 
our nature is that we can grow better, 
stronger, swifter, surer, only little by little. 
The student who has a trained and keen 
capacity for acquiring knowledge, who has 


14 Little by Little 

accuracy, retentiveness, insight, imagination, 
skill in expression—has gained all these 
things only little by little. Did anyone ever 
come to great knowledge in a short time^ 
Learning gotten in a brief space is superficial. 
If it is quickly gained, it will not be pro¬ 
found, comprehensive, and mature. One 
may acquire a smattering of a subject in a 
short time, but to penetrate into its depths, 
possess its limits, and thoroughly assimilate 
its full contents one must grow wiser little 
by little. Studious nights and laborious days 
must all true scholars give as the bloody price 
of learning. 

So it is in every plane of human effort. 
The scientist must rise to eminence little by 
little. The professional man acquires his 
practical skill not even during the slow years 
of his professional studies, but afterward in 
the long effort of active life, and so he, too, 
develops and gains knowledge little by little. 
The writer who seems to have fluency, apt¬ 
ness of phrase, swiftness of comprehension 
and expression, has got these things not soon 
nor easily,' but by a weary and painstaking 
apprenticeship. His first efforts were crude, 


hit tie by hit tie 15 

ridiculous perhaps, at least immature. They 
meant the spoiling of much good ink and 
white paper. But what skill and sureness he 
possesses he got little by little. 

So one might go tediously on and find in 
every sphere of human activity this same in¬ 
exorable law that progress is step by step and 
little by little. 

Remember too that most human progress is 
only made at the expense of a great many 
partial failures. Even one’s most large and 
definite steps forward are accompanied with 
a vast deal of slipping back. There was a 
curious and painful method of pilgrimage in 
old times which consisted in taking three 
steps forward and two backward until one 
reached the goal. It is a parable of human 
progress. In education our course is one of 
learning and partial forgetting; in science 
our advance lies by the way of discovering 
part truth and part falsehood, and then 
slowly and painstakingly separating the dross 
from the gold. In professional life how many 
failures precede that plenitude of skill which 
marks the expert practitioner. In any art 
how many canvases and how much clay are 


16 Little by Little 

spoiled before one achieves the perfect 
masterpiece ? 

Keeping this in mind, it is no wonder that 
our spiritual life should proceed in the same 
human and usual fashion, little by little, and 
with many slippings backward. Being 
human, we partake both of the benefits and 
the disadvantages of our human nature. 
Just as it is our nature to walk step by step 
and not to fly, to creep where we cannot run, 
and to go forward little by little where we 
cannot advance more swiftly, so in the spirit¬ 
ual life it is the lot of most people to go for¬ 
ward slowly, step by step, gaining ground 
with difficulty, always tending to slip back¬ 
ward and achieving a height of goodness only 
after long, breathless effort and weary times 
of discouragement. We are to be mountain 
climbers; we are not to go dully forward on 
the even level of mediocrity. We are to seek 
perfection, to try to imitate the Son of God 
Himself, always climbing upward toward 
His height, out of the common air of our 
human nature into the sweet freedom of the 
sunshine and the open places. What wonder 
that we grow weary, that we sometimes doubt 


Little by Little 17 

if we are making progress; what marvel that 
the climbing is slow and the progress difficult, 
for we are aiming at lofty heights. 

Apply these reflections to your personal ex¬ 
perience, and you should get a great deal of 
consolation. It is much, after all, not to have 
gone backward. It is much, indeed, to have 
gone a little forward. If we find ourselves 
still struggling, still clinging to the hard rocks 
and urging ourselves forward from point to 
point and ever struggling upward, then all 
is well. God, who made our human nature, 
intends us not to fly from the low level to the 
topmost peaks, for this is a glory which He 
gives only to a few and the more favored of 
His servants. He intends most of us to gain 
our merit and our glory by trying and not 
always succeeding, but by still urging man¬ 
fully on, with our eyes toward the heights. 
So long as we still are heaving upward, 
breathless and weary maybe, but still setting 
one brave footstep after another up the rocky 
sides of the peaks. He smiles on us with ap¬ 
proval and is satisfied. For the merit of our 
state does not consist entirely in achieving, 
but greatly in continuing to climb. 


i8 Little by Little 

It should be encouragement and consola¬ 
tion to know that we may get merit and 
please God very much by going forward lit¬ 
tle by little. He considers not the gift of the 
lover but the love of the giver. It is the in¬ 
tention, the inward devotion with which we 
perform our actions that pleases our Father's 
heart. If He wished to have us leap up the 
height, He could give us the strength to do 
so; if He wished us to fly, He could provide 
us with wings. 

Indeed, in the case of defects which are 
not sins—and there are very many in our 
human nature—it may be better for us, in 
God's providence, not to get forward too fast, 
but rather to have to keep on struggling. We 
read in the lives of the saints that God left 
to many of them certain defects in their char¬ 
acter and disposition to be a spur and an oc¬ 
casion to exercise humility and trust in God. 
That fiery warrior of Christ, St. Paul, the 
great Apostle, tells us that he cried out to 
God to be delivered from a grievous infirm¬ 
ity that was-as a thorn in his flesh. But God, 
instead of hearing his prayer to be rid of this 
defect said to him, “My grace is sufficient for 


Little by Little 19 

thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity/’ 
This answer of God will apply to a whole 
host of our own deficiencies. 

Again, there is a deal of salutary mortifica¬ 
tion in patiently bearing these defects. It is 
easy to sail on over tranquil seas, wafted by 
a favoring wind, where we find our way 
pleasant and our passage swift. We are in¬ 
clined to believe that it is our own good 
strength and happy fervor which is sending 
us forward swiftly, and we forget to thank 
God for the favorable wind and the quiet sea. 
But let us find ourselves utterly impotent, 
struggling with prevailing winds and caught 
on the crests and in the hollows of a wicked 
sea. Then we shall appreciate our utter de¬ 
pendence on the divine Majesty, when we 
find ourselves entirely obliged to trust to God 
for help and aid and to acknowledge our own 
complete dependence on Him. 

The great danger of human nature is pride. 
It was pride which in the beginning ruined 
our first parents, who, desiring to be as gods, 
disobeyed the command of the Most High 
and ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree. 
Ridiculous as it may seem, it is pride which 
is our own great peril. We who are fallen, 


20 Little by Little 

stripped of the glory of our original inno¬ 
cence and reduced to such a pitiful pass— 
that we can still be proud is one of the 
mysteries of human nature. Yet so it is, and 
this pride is a danger even to those who are 
going forward in the spiritual life and who 
are making an earnest effort to get on in 
God’s favor. The advances made, the con¬ 
solations received, the knowledge that we are 
overcoming our defects, leave us sadly open 
to temptations to self-complacency. So that 
God our Father, knowing our weakness, puts 
us beyond the danger of pride by letting us 
experience at times our own nothingness and 
impotence. We know that we are nothing 
and the shadow of nothing, and that our 
whole being is as dust before God, but we 
feel this best and realize it most completely 
when after long efforts we find how little we 
have got forward and are compelled to 
acknowledge how weak we are even with the 
strong aid of the arm of God. 

These reflections may cheer us a bit when 
we grow sad at making such scant progress 
in the way of goodness. Our going forward 
little by little should not be a discourage¬ 
ment, but a consolation. We may well put 


Little by Little 21 

our entire trust in the mercy of God, and we 
should know that by going forward little by 
little we are in a human way getting toward 
heaven. Step by step must the journey be 
made. With straining limbs and streaming 
eyes we must go on climbing a little higher 
and higher. While we seem to be going for¬ 
ward so slowly, God is counting each effort 
and each struggle, and awards the prize, not 
to him who leaps up most swiftly, but to him 
who struggles onward with the most deter¬ 
mined love. 

In spite of our imperfections and weak¬ 
ness, in spite of the dark shadows that close 
our path and the perilous moments of an¬ 
guish when we are clinging to a rude rock 
and cannot get forward, let us persevere until 
of a sudden our Father’s hand takes us from 
the struggle and turmoil and lifts us up 
mightily through the mist of death to the 
heights toward which we are struggling. 
There for all ages to come we shall be glad 
of the struggling and the sighing, and shall 
be consoled by the knowledge that we have 
got on, somehow and with God’s aid, even 
though we could only go forward little by 
little. 


OUR TROUBLESOME SELVES 


W E remember reading long ago a bit 
of lively verse which told a very 
human story. It was the tale of a 
knight of old who sallied forth from his an¬ 
cestral castle armed cap-a-pie with glistening 
mail and fired with youthful chivalry. Bright 
was the morn and fair the sun when the castle 
gates swung open to usher out this young ad¬ 
venturer, and brave his young heart beat as 
he vowed to do doughty deeds in distant 
lands and send his fame to history. But alas, 
so the story ran, just at the castle gate, 
crouched under a shady stone, the good young 
knight met his first adversary. It was a 
wicked dragon, small and ugly and mean, 
and it gave him battle without pause for 
breath from the sunrise to the sunset of all 
that long summer day. The dragon snarled 
and breathed black flame; the young knight 
thrust and thrust again. It was a weary and 
stubborn fight, and when the sunset came and 
they could fight no more, it was a weary 
and bedraggled knight that wandered back 
through the castle gate to wash his wounds 
22 


Our Troublesome Selves 23 

and make him ready for another fray, for the 
dragon was still unslain. The good knight’s 
armor was dented with many a mark of tooth 
and claw. His noble plume was scorched and 
shorn, his flesh was dark with dragon’s 
breath and his sword with dragon’s blood. 

Came the next morn and out he went 
again, with armor brightened and plume re¬ 
newed, and dreaming again of distant lands. 
But there by the shady stone was the small, 
mean dragon still in wait. Again and again 
the whole day long the goodly knight fought 
and thrust and hewed and hacked, but he 
could not beat the dragon down. Thus it 
went on for days on days, the dull, inglori¬ 
ous combat every day renewed. Forever the 
weary knight would dream on the conquest 
of distant lands, forever the small and ugly 
dragon at the door would waste his youth¬ 
ful strength and send him back bedraggled 
and outworn. Until at length the golden 
hair grew gray, the bright young eyes dimmed 
over with age and care, the ruddy limbs grew 
wrinkled and weak with eld, and, turning at 
last from the weary fight, the aged knight 
went back into his gate never to come forth 


24 Our Troublesome Selves 

again, leaving the wide world unconquered 
still, save in his dreams, and the dragon, 
small and ugly and mean, unconquered by 
his door. And the name of the dragon, con¬ 
cluded this touching tale, was—Self! 

It is a proper allegory. So do we all, when 
we sally forth with noble dreams, meet a 
dragon by the door. Day by day our strife 
with ourselves is renewed, and at the end of 
many days we give over fighting at last, with 
that selfsame dragon of self, weakened and 
wounded perhaps, but not quite slain, still 
lurking at our door. 

Many a one of fine hopes and noble aspira¬ 
tions has been scared and worried into dis¬ 
couragement and despair by the daily fear 
and weariness of this dragon Self. Day by 
day, in the course of the wearisome combat, 
many a one has slowly given up hope of great 
and distant achievement because of the weari¬ 
ness and horror which the vision of self and 
its sickening shortcomings has bred. It is 
literally true in this strange world that a 
man’s enemies are of his own household. 
True too that men and women courageous 
and good, who could not be frightened from 


Our Troublesome Selves 25 

their high resolves by any common fear, have 
by degrees abandoned their noble purposes 
and given up hope of achievement because, 
in simple truth, they were afraid of their 
own selves. 

Truth to say, it is a not unreasonable fear. 
We have more cause to be afraid of ourselves 
than of anything else in the world. No one 
else, not all the devils in hell, can do us any 
lasting harm. All of our woe and all of our 
loss at the last is due to our troublesome self. 
The reason of this is clear. We shall be 
judged and shall stand or fall not by what 
others do to us but by what we do ourselves. 
It is our own free acts that must ruin us or 
save. When our life is added up and the 
great sum total of merit or guilt cast and de¬ 
clared, every item for or against us in the 
long account will be a free and deliberate ac¬ 
tion of ourselves. 

And a troublesome self it is, to be sure! 
For all the brave front they put on before 
the world, it is only the fools among men 
who in their hearts are not out of conceit with 
their troublesome selves. There is a popular 
phrase, often heard about certain types of 


26 Our Troublesome Selves 

men, that they are their own worst enemies. 
Alas, the saying might be applied to us all. 
We all of us do ourselves more harm than 
anyone else in the world could do us. In¬ 
deed, all our true misfortunes come not from 
without but from within us. For the one 
true misfortune is sin, and it is we ourselves 
and we alone who can inflict this harm on 
our souls. 

Again, we all know to our cost, and even 
the greatest of saints have groaned with dis¬ 
may at the thought, how weak and fickle we 
are and how many our faults and defects. 
Original sin has left its wound in our body 
and soul, and we feel our hearts tugged and 
pulled with impulses and desires which, as 
St. Paul has so eloquently said, are a law in 
our members which fights with the law of our 
mind. All literature, sacred and profane, is 
a constant witness to the truth of this me¬ 
morable saying. Ovid voiced it when he said: 
Video meliora prohoque deteriora sequor — 
“I see the better deed and I approve it, and 
then I do the worse.” Many a saint and many 
a poet and many a one of lesser worth or 
fame has joined in the lament of all human- 


Our Troublesome Selves 27 

ity against their troublesome selves. So the 
whole of mankind who are intent on higher 
things and seek the vision and the dream are 
forever in sordid conflict with the dragon at 
their very door. 

What then? Shall we grow weary and 
despair? Is it an unhappy thing, a pure mis¬ 
fortune, for us always to meet the dragon at 
the door? It might seem so indeed to those 
of little faith. Yet to us who have the Chris¬ 
tian teaching there is great merit and con¬ 
solation in the perpetual conflict we must 
wage with our troublesome selves. For no¬ 
tice well that our merit here and glory here¬ 
after does not depend on victory, but on fight¬ 
ing. We shall not be asked whether or not 
we quite utterly slew the troublesome dragon 
Self, but how nobly and how patiently we 
withstood him. There are indeed some happy 
mortals who do seem nearly to have scotched 
the poisonous serpent. They are so good, un¬ 
selfish, and gentle, have so overcome what¬ 
ever is harsh, mean, and unworthy in their 
nature, that the victory over self seems 
almost perfect in them, and one is fain to 
think that they have gained the life-long 


28 Our Troublesome Selves 

struggle with their adversary. Yet ask these 
favorite souls, and even they will tell of vigi¬ 
lance unrelaxed and struggles always re¬ 
newed. The snake is stunned maybe and 
dormant, but it is not slain. “Our self-love,” 
says St. Francis de Sales, “will die just about 
a quarter of an hour after ourselves.” 

So that it is God's design in giving us this 
enemy at our door to prove our courage and 
endurance not in swift victory but in patient 
fighting. It would have been a thrilling and 
inspiriting thing for that young knight of the 
story to have galloped forth in his glisten¬ 
ing mail and done great deeds in distant 
lands. But daily to sally out to struggle with 
the ugly dragon at the door required a finer 
courage and more sterling mettle. It was 
courage that did not need the stimulus of 
glory and of victory. So also the obscure 
battles we carry on with self, in those dark 
inward realms where there is no eye to see but 
God's and no tongues to praise but those 
which sound in heaven, are more glorious and 
more full of merit than if we waged them 
in the eyes of men and for the praise of the 
admiring world. Indeed, in proportion as 


Our Troublesome Selves 29 

self is troublesome and difficult to subdue, 
our merit and the glory of our conflict grows. 
It needs a finer courage and a more Christian 
hope to fight without sparing against a harsh 
and difficult disposition than it does to resist 
the prompting of a self less troublesome and 
perverse. 

We have reason, then, not to grieve but to 
be glad over our perpetual and daily conflict. 
Even though we take wounds and suffer 
scars, this will not destroy our merit and 
glory at the last. Even though we seem to 
make no great headway with our foe, we still 
are gaining the solid glory of fighting on. 
Every onslaught is a summons to merit, and 
every advance of our plaguing enemy is an 
opportunity. It is told of St. Gertrude that 
once on a time she saw the heavens opened 
and the angels looking with envy on the chil¬ 
dren of men. “Why do ye envy us,’’ she 
cried out, “ye celestial intelligences“Be¬ 
cause,” replied the angels, “you have still a 
chance of merit, and you can suffer and toil 
and strive and gain a yet higher place in 
heaven.” Doubtless the blessed in heaven, 
whom God Himself enlightens as to the true 


30 Our Troublesome Selves 

value of all things, must look with wonder on 
us, marveling that we make so little use of 
our vast opportunities, that we miss so many 
happy chances of gaining victories over our 
troublesome selves. 

We must, therefore, not lose courage nor 
grow weary of the daily struggle. Indeed, 
our one misfortune would be to allow our¬ 
selves to lose heart and give up the battle. 
Discouragement is the fatal end of meritori¬ 
ous striving. It is our part to keep up the 
fight, and if we yield, the dragon has the field. 
A goodly company is watching us from 
heaven. None of our obscurest efforts or the 
most hidden blows we deal our adversary 
escape the eyes of those celestial witnesses. 
When we overcome the thought of vanity, 
the stirring of pride, the pang of envy, the 
torpor of sloth, the sting of covetousness, the 
flare of anger, the craving of gluttony, or any 
other of those base impulses which are the 
fangs and claws of the dragon Self or the 
reek of his bitter breath blowing hot on our 
soul, then bright applause and smiling satis¬ 
faction run round the fair circle of our friends 
in heaven. The sleepless gaze of the Most 
Holy Trinity is on us. Christ and His 


Our Troublesome Selves 31 

Blessed Mother watch from their height. 
The goodly company of our patron saints 
with all their peers are the beholders of our 
victories. The angels, who have never ex¬ 
perienced the dark rebellions of the flesh, 
wonder that clay can strive so well, and cheer 
us with their watchful company. Who would 
not fight courageously forever,‘ with such 
lookers-on to grace and crown the victory! 

So let us go forth like the good knight of 
old, with morning face and gallant looks, 
each day to do good battle with our ancient 
adversary. When we feel the claws and the 
withering breath of our troublesome selves, 
and groan under the onslaught of our enemy, 
let us remember the merit of the battle and 
who are looking on to see us bear ourselves 
like fit warriors of the Cross in this daily con¬ 
troversy. For the merit of the fight is not 
in winning, but in striving. Great help from 
heaven must come to those who only strug¬ 
gle on. Our glory and the credit of our cour¬ 
age is not to come from quite conquering our 
adversary, but from bravely struggling on, 
without ever losing heart or giving over, 
against the perpetual and daily onslaught of 
our own troublesome selves. 


THE MUCH REQUIRED 

I N THE mysterious ways of God’s prov¬ 
idence it is quite clear that some per¬ 
sons receive vastly more of the gifts of 
grace and opportunity than others. In ex¬ 
treme instances one sees this very clearly. 
Consider yourself, for instance, yourself with 
all your knowledge of the Faith, the immense, 
unmerited favor you have received of Chris¬ 
tian baptism, your opportunities for the sac¬ 
raments, your many dealings with fervent 
Catholic people, your Catholic training at 
home and at school, the ministrations of 
priests, the good example of pious friends, 
the worthy books that are always ready to 
your hand to tell you more of Catholic truths 
and stir you to greater fervor, in a word, all 
the crowded mercies with which the special 
providence of God fills your days. You are 
one of the spoiled children of God. He has 
distinguished you—no matter how simple or 
obscure you may seem to yourself, provided 
only you are a member of the Catholic Church 
—^He has distinguished you by incomparable 
32 


The Much Required 33 

mercies. Compare yourself as you now are 
with^ let us say, one of the swarming millions 
in the populous cities of Asia, or with one of 
those blacks who lurk in the forests of Africa. 
Such a one is as human as yourself, as de¬ 
serving in himself, antecedently to God’s 
choice, of the grace of baptism, of the oppor¬ 
tunity to be a Catholic. But not to him has 
come the immense blessing of the saving sac¬ 
rament. God in His undiscoverable ways 
has other designs to save his soul, providing 
he on his part does all in his power to fulfil 
natural justice. But in point of fact he has 
received very little in comparison with you, 
who have received extremely much. You 
have obtained the abundance of the house¬ 
hold of God, while he has barely the crumbs 
that fall from the table of the children. How 
unequally have spiritual blessings been meas¬ 
ured out to you and to him! 

Nor need you go so far away for a com¬ 
parison. In your own city, among your own 
circle of friends, you will find many who are 
indefinitely poorer than yourself in the good 
gifts of God. Consider the state of those 
who have never received instruction in the 


34 'The Much Required 

Catholic Faith, who have never even got a 
glimpse of the beauty and the majesty of the 
Spouse of Christ, who do not even vaguely 
dream that the Catholic Church is the authen¬ 
tic voice of God on earth, the depository of 
salvation, the mother of men, the comforter 
of hearts, and the door to heaven. You leave 
your house in the morning and from another 
house across the street comes one of your 
neighbors. You greet him, for you know 
him well. He has grown up in the same city 
as you. You both have many of the same 
acquaintances and friends. Yet this man’s 
heart is as starved of the truth of Christ 
almost as though he had been born in some 
jungle town of Africa or cradled by some 
broad yellow river in Asia. What are his 
chances compared to yours He may spring 
from one of those families, too common in 
our land, where there is no religious tradition 
whatsoever, where neither the father nor the 
mother nor any of the children ever darken 
the doors of a church. Or he may have been 
cradled in one of those creeds outworn which, 
though they call themselves Christian, have 
so diluted the doctrines of Christ and so com- 


The Much Required 35 

promised with His teaching that tor them 
Christianity is a respectable ethical system, 
sacraments are empty symbols, one church is 
quite like another, and one religion as good, 
or as little good (which often means the same 
thing) as any other religion. 

Compare yourself with such a man. You 
have knowledge, he is in ignorance; you have 
guidance, he is quite at sea without a rudder 
or a sail; you are sure of your ground in re¬ 
ligious things, he is walking on quicksands; 
you have the, sacraments, the Mass, the sacra- 
mentals, all the consoling aids which the 
Church gives to her children, he has the bar¬ 
ren ministry of preaching or the unintelligi¬ 
ble word of the Bible, without true guide or 
right instructor to help him separate the false 
from the real. How much has been given 
you! To him in comparison has been given 
how very little! 

Nay, perhaps even in the household of the 
Church you may find many a one who in corn- 
parison with yourself has been given ex¬ 
tremely little. There are some fifteen hun¬ 
dred thousand children at this moment in our 
land, Catholic children every one by inherit- 


36 The Much Required 

ance and most of them by baptism, who are 
not in a Catholic school. They are not re¬ 
ceiving, in school at least, a Catholic educa¬ 
tion. Many of them, of course, are being 
taught at home or in catechism classes some¬ 
thing of the doctrines of their holy religion. 
But they miss that constant influence, that 
priceless training which comes from the in¬ 
fluence of religion in the very atmosphere of 
the schoolroom. They are not getting an 
education which is saturated with and en¬ 
nobled by the Catholic Faith. If you have 
had an education in a Catholic school, how 
much more fortunate you are than they! 

The inequalities, then, in the distribution 
of God's gifts are very evident. To some 
much, to others less, to still others little has 
been given. It is not for us to conjecture the 
hidden reasons of God's gifts and refusals. 
He is infinite and essential Wisdom, Mercy, 
and Love. To us is revealed, to use again an 
old but beautiful figure, but one side of the 
great tapestry which the eternal Weaver is 
forever making through the ages. We see 
the knots and the loose ends of the threads 
which He is using to weave the glorious de- 


The Much Required 37 

sign that shall be shown to us in heaven and 
shall bewitch our eyes with its consummate 
workmanship. We see too dimly and too 
feebly to conjecture, much less to criticise, the 
great designs of God. But we can discern 
this plain truth which is written evidently on 
the whole scheme of things—that some of us 
have received much, and others little; some 
have been blessed with many graces, others 
have received far less. 

But there is one saying of our Blessed Lord 
which cuts through our tepid ingratitude for 
so many blessings, our supine indifference to 
the great multitude of God’s favors, like a 
terrible sharp sword. It is a brief and simple 
sentence, most obvious in its truth, most tre¬ 
mendous in its significance. It brings us sud¬ 
denly face to face with a realization that our 
worser self had rather not have brought home 
to us. It tears away with one sudden gesture 
the heavy cloak that hides our ingratitude 
from our own heart. The saying is this: 
“From those who have received much, much 
will be required; from those who have re¬ 
ceived less, less will be required.” 

I confess that it needs a great deal of moral 


38 The Much Required 

courage to look this saying full in the face 
and let its true significance sink down into 
our hearts. But it is equally certain that 
few things can be more good for our souls 
than to realize the meaning of this word. We 
take God’s gifts so much as a matter of course. 
While our hearts overflow with His graces 
and our souls are fat with the marrow of His 
gifts, we allow so much of His bounty to be 
wasted with so little compunction, even with 
such scanty thought. Having been brought 
up in the household of God, which is the 
Catholic Church, and been fed so constantly 
at His royal table, we think so little of the 
account we have to render for the very 
abundance of His good gifts. Gratitude is 
dull in us. We do not give thanks enough 
even for what we waste of the good gifts of 
God. Being in truth paupers who have been 
led in to the table of a king, we are more in¬ 
solent than if we were princes of the blood. 
We take and waste and forget, and do not 
give thanks as we should. 

Upon this dull ingratitude and slumber¬ 
ing sense of responsibility the words of Our 
Lord break like a clap of threatening thunder. 


The Much Required 39 

His saying is most reasonable, and for that 
very cause it is all the more impressive. God 
will require of us in proportion as we have 
received. We who have received so much, 
how much will be demanded of us! What 
great things God has a right to expect from 
those to whom He has so greatly given! This 
is no academic speculation, no glittering gen¬ 
erality without practical import which we 
can toss off and forget. Our accounting is to 
be in proportion to what we have received. 
If you have received much, you must prepare 
to give the much that is required. 

Because of the great importance of this 
truth and our great danger of forgetting it, 
Our Lord has not mentioned it only once, but 
He has driven it home with more than one 
vivid parable. There is the parable of the 
talents, which gives us to understand that 
when the great Householder shall exact an 
accounting. He will require of those who 
have received five talents a greater return 
than He will expect from those who have re¬ 
ceived but two. It is only another way that 
Our Lord has taken to show us that we who 
have received much must make a great re- 


40 The Much Required 

turn. From those who have received little 
He will demand a less strict accounting and 
be satisfied with a less bountiful return. 

We shall do well to realize while there is 
yet time how much will be required of us for 
the great things that we have received and 
are receiving from Almighty God, because 
life slips away so fast and we are so likely to 
forget, and our days run so swiftly to an end. 
We must seize, hold to, and use betimes what 
He offers us, making good profit from what 
He gives, because we shall have to render an 
accounting. Time drives on so relentlessly. 
The moments fall behind us so ceaselessly. 
The gifts of God pass so swiftly. We must 
seize hold on the instants and make them 
yield to us all that God has entrusted to them, 
else they slip by and elude us and do not 
give up the merit here and the glory here¬ 
after that we should have got from them. 
Yet for each one we shall have to make an 
accounting. 

These thoughts must not make us discour¬ 
aged nor sad, but rather they should stir us 
up to an intense interest and a weariless activ¬ 
ity in good works to redeem the lost oppor- 


The Much Required 41 

tunities of the past and to make the present 
yield what God means it to give us. In a 
short space we can fulfil a great time. By 
loving God extremely much and doing all 
things very rightly and purely for His love, 
we can atone in great measure for our remiss¬ 
ness in the past and make ready to render 
Him worthily the much required of us who 
have received so much. This thought should 
stir us up from that spiritual sloth which is 
a great and hidden temptation of these times, 
even among good people, and set us working 
like laborers that sweat for a wage and must 
earn their livelihood day by day, getting 
each day’s food by each day’s toil. 

The reflection that we have received so 
much should likewise arouse us to a great 
compunction and grieving for our past sloth 
and wasting of the good gifts of God. By 
repentance for the little profit we have gotten 
from the great opportunities given us we can 
make amends in some degree for our sorry 
waste of God’s gifts. We who are the spoiled 
children of God, upon whom He showers 
down all the blessings of those of His house¬ 
hold, we have acted in a manner that will be 


42 The Much Required 

put to shame by the good conduct of many 
outside the Church with not a tithe of our 
opportunities and graces. Our Lord directs 
us to say, even when we have done all that 
we should, that we are unprofitable servants. 
How much more should we beat our breast in 
sorrow and confess that we are unprofitable 
servants of God when we have received so 
much more than others, and yet have fallen 
so short even of our common duty. If we 
can weep in our hearts for our shortcomings, 
that will at least be some atonement. A 
heartfelt and abiding sorrow for the great 
measure in which we have wasted God’s good 
gifts is the least amends we can make to the 
heavenly bounty. 

To think of the much we have received and 
the much required of us will likewise be a 
great incentive to charity. We know by in¬ 
timate and actual experience how very much 
God has given to ourselves. We know little 
or nothing of what He has given to others. 
We experience in our own souls the help and 
light of His grace. We are quite ignorant 
of what graces He gives or refuses to our 
neighbors. Ourselves we can judge severely. 


The Much Required 43 

Others we dare not venture to judge at all. 
This was the piercing thought which stirred 
the humility of the saints so that they truly 
said that in their own eyes they were the most 
unworthy of mankind. 

For they knew how great were God's 
mercies and graces to their own souls, and 
they felt intensely their faults in correspond¬ 
ing to them. But they were quite ignorant 
what graces might have been refused to 
others. Therefore, they thought well of all 
others besides themselves, but themselves they 
judged most severely. We shall do well to 
imitate the example of the saints, to accuse 
ourselves lest God should accuse us, to make 
atonement by penance and effort for our 
shortcomings in the past, but to excuse others 
and treat them as our betters because they 
may not have wasted so many of the gifts of 
God as we. We shall do well, then, to write 
deep in our minds Our Lord's warning and 
admonition. Life passes and we go swiftly 
to our accounting. Let us prepare to render 
to God the much that is required of us. For 
surely we are of those of whom it may be 
said that they have much received. 


THE FOOL OF THE HOUSE 

I F MAN were a being solely of memory, 
intelligence, and will, without either 
imagination or feeling to sway and in¬ 
fluence his actions, life would be a much 
simpler if much less interesting affair, and 
being good (so it seems to us poor mortals) 
would be a far easier matter all around. Our 
memory, after all, is a most benevolent and 
agreeable faculty—it preserves so conven¬ 
iently the things we have need to recall. We 
can manage our memory very well indeed, 
and when it does become troublesome to us 
by bringing up thoughts that are perverse and 
vexatious, the annoyance they give us is 
usually not from the memory itself, but from 
the storms they stir up in the imagination and 
feeling. 

The intellect, too, gives us very little 
trouble, except by reason of its limitations. 
There is no pain in thinking, and if some¬ 
times to think deeply and intently does weary 
or torture us, it is not the intellect that is 
the seat of the annoyance and fatigue, but our 
44 


The Fool of the House 45 

bodily powers, the feelings, the imagination 
and the nerves, which are exercised along 
with our thought. The will also, that most 
lordly power of choosing, that rules over all 
the others, is likewise a pleasant and alto¬ 
gether profitable faculty in itself. Whatever 
trouble, annoyance, or pain we feel in its 
exercise is due not so much to the will itself 
as to the pulling and tugging of our imagina¬ 
tion and feelings, which will never be quiet, 
but, like a leash of dogs, are constantly pull¬ 
ing their master, the will, now this way, now 
that, throwing the will off its balance and 
making it difficult for it to choose as it should, 
according to the calm dictates of the intelli¬ 
gence and in the clear and quiet light that is 
furnished it by the memory. 

The imagination and the feelings! What 
a nuisance they are, to put the thing mildly! 
As a quaint but very apt French proverb puts 
it, they are the fools of the household. The 
will is like the man of the family—strong, 
serious, grave—ruling, when it is let alone, 
with firmness and decision. The intellect is 
like the woman of the household, ruled by the 
will, yet influencing it most profoundly; di- 


46 The Fool of the House 

rected in its actions by the will, yet gently 
and wisely swaying it by swift intuitions and 
delicate perceptions; guiding, yet following; 
the queen of the soul’s house, as the old 
schoolmen used to say, who leads and min¬ 
isters to the blind king, the will. 

But the imagination and the feelings! 
They are the freakish children of the house¬ 
hold, wild, whimsical, and inconstant; rush¬ 
ing now to this extreme, now to that; change¬ 
able from day to day; now pulling down the 
shades of the windows and plunging the 
whole house into darkness and sadness, now 
opening doors and windows to the wild winds 
of passion; now singing songs of hope and 
desire that set the air thrilling with unquiet 
longing, now playing sad tunes of fear and 
apprehension that freeze the will and trouble 
the intellect with future sorrows that may 
never come to be. If you will reflect on your 
life thus far, what a huge part you will find 
that feeling and imagination have played in 
all your cares, sorrows, misdeeds, and errors! 
If you had lived according to the dictates of 
reason alone and listened only to the calm, 
quiet promptings that memory and intelli- 


The Fool of the House 47 

gence gave you, you might have kept the law 
of God inviolate, for reason constantly as¬ 
sures us, enlightened as it is by faith, that to 
serve God is alone the purpose of our being, 
and that to love, reverence, and praise Him 
is the sole and lasting happiness of man on 
earth. 

Therefore, when opportunities came to you 
of serving God in a singularly perfect way, 
of giving up, let us say, some worldly ad¬ 
vantage for His love, you would have seized 
upon the chance for self-sacrifice, if you acted 
from reason alone, with as much joy as a 
miser feels in his gold. If you had listened 
to your reason alone you never would have 
sinned so often and so carelessly. For again, 
reason enlightened by faith tells us that sin 
is the one great evil in the universe, and that 
nothing in life can compensate for the shame 
and the wrong of a single sin. The most un¬ 
reasonable of human actions is that by which 
one offends the infinite God, whom it is im¬ 
possible to deceive, whose vigilance it is hope¬ 
less to avoid, whose justice is as infinite as 
His power, and who is worthy in Himself of 


48 The Fool of the House 

all the gratitude, obedience, and ardent love 
of our hearts. 

Our holy Faith gives us such a clear, simple 
and secure view of the universe, a view that 
only God’s own wisdom could impart! The 
world is a place of pilgrimage; we are way¬ 
farers to the heavenly kingdom. Our whole 
business on earth is to go forward in the love, 
praise, and service of God. All things on 
earth, our own body and soul, the friends, 
the wealth, the opportunities that Gkxi gives 
us, are all to be used to help us forward in 
His service, and to be given up, without a 
murmur, nay, with actual joy, however good 
or pleasant they may seem in themselves, if 
they interfere or fail to help us toward the 
great goal to which we all are journeying. 
This is the notion of life that our intelligence, 
instructed and enlightened by the teachings 
of faith, presents to us. Why, then, do we 
turn aside after the things of the world, neg¬ 
lect our clear duty to ourselves and to God, 
ruin our lives, and spoil, so far as we can, the 
harmony of the universe by sin^? 

A chief cause of our follies and the source 
of most of the disorders in our lives are pre- 


The Fool of the House 49 

cisely these two fools of the household—our 
imagination and our feelings. They are for¬ 
ever disturbing the soul with illusive fancies, 
sudden impulses, ill-ordered desires. When 
you sin, it is because the feeling of the mo¬ 
ment has obscured your sense of duty, be¬ 
cause some imaginary good is being dangled 
before you by your imagination, because some 
vivid image of a present good is being so 
alluringly presented to your mind by that 
picture-facuity, the imagination. Thus your 
sober judgment is disturbed, the eternal 
truths are obscured, your will is misled into 
seizing the apparent benefit which the imag¬ 
ination represents as present and easy to ob¬ 
tain, and it turns away from the true but 
distant joys which have been sometime its 
aim and its aspiration when the intelligence 
has presented to it the love and service of 
God and the hope of heaven. 

So, too, the feelings are constantly luring 
us into sin unless we can keep them in check 
by careful ward and watchful discipline. 
Feelings of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, 
gluttony, envy, sloth—how easily can these 
betray us into the deadly sins of which they 


50 The Fool of the House 

bear the names! Analyze the mistakes you 
have made in your life, the faults you have 
committed, the follies you have been guilty 
of, and see how many of them were due to 
the sad victory of your feelings over what 
your intelligence told you in regard to the 
will of God and His law. 

All this is a rather melancholy indictment 
of the imagination and the feelings. If they 
are so harmful and deceiving, why have we 
been given them at all? Is it the part of wis¬ 
dom to crush the imagination and to stifle the 
feelings? Should we be better off without 
any feelings or imagination at all? The 
very questions suggest their answer. It is not 
the imagination, but its misuse that harms us; 
not the feelings, but their excess that leads us 
astray. It is the bad training of these facul¬ 
ties which we have to regret in our past life 
and to remedy in the future. There is a very 
ancient and hackneyed, but very just and 
true, comparison which likens the feelings 
and the imagination to spirited horses which 
to be useful have to be tamed and trained. 
The more spirited and lively they are, the 
more useful they may be made, if only they 


The Fool of the House 51 

leam to carry and pull instead of running 
wild. The more vivid and strong our imag¬ 
ination and feelings are, the more they may 
be made to carry us forward on the road to 
heaven, if only we train them well, drive 
them carefully, and keep an eye upon them, 
as a good driver does on a spirited horse, lest 
they kick over the traces or get the bit be¬ 
tween their teeth. 

The greatest of the saints have been men 
of strong imagination and feelings. So have 
the greatest sinners. In the one case the 
powers of the imagination and feelings have 
been controlled and used in the wars of God; 
in the other they have run wild and carried 
their masters strongly and swiftly to destruc¬ 
tion. They are as powerful for justice as for 
perdition, as strong for heaven as for hell. 
Indeed, the careers of some of the saints show 
very vividly both the good and the evil of the 
feelings and imagination. St. Augustine's 
carried him far in wickedness before he 
learned to rule and drive them by God's grace 
until they bore him even more swiftly on the 
ways of sanctity. St. Ignatius had many a 
doleful hour before he learned the art of spir- 


52 The Fool of the House 

itual exercise to control the fancy and the 
feelings, and he has systematized the art, un¬ 
til anyone with good will can follow in his 
way and ‘'conquer self so as to order all his 
life not by vain imaginations nor selfish feel¬ 
ings, but by the law of God. 

Indeed, to recur to our former comparison, 
the task of ordering the household of our soul 
is not so unlike that of the careful father and 
mother of a household in ruling their little, 
but sometimes turbulent, domain. The will, 
like a prudent father, must listen to the quiet 
promptings of the intelligence and be firm 
and strong in keeping steady sway and fol¬ 
lowing conscience, which is reason interpret¬ 
ing the law of God. The intellect must be 
the mistress of the soul, guided by the will, 
and supreme over both feelings and imagina¬ 
tion, her warnings heeded and her behests 
obeyed. The imagination and feelings are to 
be treated like headlong and impulsive chil¬ 
dren, fed on strong and nourishing food, re¬ 
strained from excesses, disciplined to good 
and orderly habits, trained and encouraged, 
wisely taught and guided, until the way¬ 
wardness and lawlessness, that are in them 


The Fool of the House 53 

since the sad fall of Adam made the sense 
and the imagination of man prone to evil 
from his youth, are trained and purged away. 
Then we shall act, not from the wild rushes 
of feeling nor the empty allurements of the 
imagination, but with a disciplined will and 
a calm and temperate mind, guided by rea¬ 
son, which in turn is enlightened by faith. 


SOME LENTEN SUBSTITUTES 


T o DO penance in one form or another is a 
necessity to us poor fallen children of 
Adam. Our Lord quite pointedly in¬ 
formed us so when He said to us through His 
apostles, “Unless you do penance you shall 
all likewise perish.'’ We have sinned. Upon 
sin must follow either punishment or pen¬ 
ance. If we wish, therefore, to escape the 
punishment due our sins, we must atone for 
them. This is the simple summary of the 
law of penance. We must afflict ourselves 
by voluntary self-chastisement for our sins 
or God’s justice will afflict us and cause us to 
make a much keener, though involuntary, 
satisfaction for what we have done amiss. It 
is, then, not from severity but rather out of 
pity that the Church imposes on us peniten¬ 
tial fasts and abstinences. Lest we should 
forget or omit to make satisfaction for our 
sins she reminds us and assists us by making 
it obligatory upon us under pain of grievous 
sin to abstain or to fast on certain definite 
days. She bids us in this way avert before- 
54 


Some Lenten Substitutes 55 

hand God’s severe chastisements which will 
fall on us for our unatoned sins, in this life 
and most of all in the fiery ordeal of 
purgatory. 

These official penances of the Church are 
therefore not a hardship on us, but a singular 
privilege. They remind us betimes to make 
atonement, while at the same time they sanc¬ 
tify and consecrate in a particular way our 
penance. What one does in a private capac¬ 
ity and of his own free will to mortify him¬ 
self and atone for his sins is meritorious and 
has efficacy. Yet it is not to be compared 
with that penance performed out of obedience 
to the law of the Church and in accordance 
with her holy regulations. The abstinence 
on Fridays, therefore, the fasts of Lent, have 
a particular efficacy to atone for our sins, be¬ 
cause they are performed in obedience to the 
explicit law of the Church and are sanctified 
beyond the ordinary. It is much better, all 
other things being equal, to observe the reg¬ 
ular fasts of the Church and her prescribed 
abstinences than, disregarding these, to mor¬ 
tify one’s self in private ways of one’s own 
choosing. Obedience gives a special holiness 


56 ^ome Lenten Substitutes 

to the Church’s fasts—that obedience which 
is better than sacrifice and which adds to sac¬ 
rifice a particular merit and efficacy. 

We are fortunate, then, if we find our¬ 
selves able to fast during Lent. It is a real 
misfortune on the other hand to have to ask 
a dispensation. Since we must, in one way 
or the other, do penance for our sins; and 
since voluntary penance and in particular 
penance commanded by the Church is so 
much more efficacious for the remission of the 
punishment due them, we are fortunate if we 
can perform just what is prescribed by our 
good and holy Mother; unfortunate if we find 
ourselves obliged to seek exemption. Such 
special merit and such singular effectiveness 
for the remission of sin’s punishment reside in 
the prescribed fasts and abstinences of the 
Church that we suffer a serious loss when we 
have to be dispensed from them. True, when 
we are dispensed, our obligation ceases. Still 
we are encouraged, though we are not bound, 
to substitute other penances for the fasting 
which we cannot practice. 

To put the thing in other words, the 
general obligation to do penance presses on 


^ome Lenten Substitutes 57 

all of us. We must all do penance or we 
shall all likewise perish. The Church, with 
great kindness and thoughtfulness, says to 
us: “Fast during Lent and on the days ap¬ 
pointed. In this way you shall appease the 
anger of God and heed the warning of Our 
Lord to do penance.” Our frail health says 
to us: “This manner of penance by fasting 
you cannot do.” Then must we say to our¬ 
selves: “Penance I must do; to fast I am 
not able—what substitute, then, shall I offer 
to God by way of penance for my sins*?” 

Foremost in the ranks of salutary works of 
penance comes the pious practice of almsgiv¬ 
ing. The concupiscence of the eyes, the 
incessant itching and desire to have more 
of the goods of this world and to hold on to 
what we have, is one of the strongest inclina¬ 
tions of our poor human nature. Almsgiving 
mortifies this harsh and strong concupiscence. 
When we give, whether out of our abundance 
or our need, to those more wretched and more 
needy than ourselves, we lend to the Lord, 
and at the same time we exercise a salutary 
act of mortification. It hurts us, to a greater 
or less degree, according to the size of the 


58 Some Lenten Substitutes 

gift and the measure of our generosity, to 
part with what we have. Therefore, alms¬ 
giving is a true penance, and many a passage 
in Holy Writ tells us how pleasing it is in 
the sight of God. Those who give to the 
poor lend to the Lord. Those who sacrifice 
their attachment to possessions and hand 
them over for the benefit of the missions or 
for the spread of the Faith propitiate God's 
justice in a most effective manner. The 
charity which gives alms to the missions or 
to the poor is of that charity which covers 
a multitude of sins. If we have good excuse 
from the penance of fasting, which one of 
us can reasonably seek exemption from the 
penance of giving alms*? 

Almsgiving has also this excellent quality 
among others, that the efficacy of the penance 
grows greater in proportion as we have less 
of this world's goods. Those who are well- 
to-do may indeed perform efficacious pen¬ 
ance by giving large sums to charity or the 
missions. But those who have less can do as 
great penance by giving less, because the pen¬ 
ance of their almsgiving is greater in propor¬ 
tion as they have less to give. The poor 


Some Lenten Substitutes 59 

widow of the Gospel who dropped into the 
box of offerings her whole living, even all she 
had, did more penance and merited more 
praise from Our Lord than the rich men who 
cast in great offerings from their abundance. 
So that if we have much to give we must give 
much to make our almsgiving a penance, but 
if we have less to offer we may do great pen¬ 
ance by offering our little. Take serious 
thought, then, and see what you can do by 
way of penance through almsgiving. The 
poor and the missions will gratefully receive 
what you offer, and the prayers of the poor 
and of the missionaries will also help to ob¬ 
tain the remission of God's punishments for 
your sins. 

Besides almsgiving there are many other 
good works which have about them the savor 
of sacrifice and therefore form efficacious sub¬ 
stitutes for the Lenten fasting which our 
weak health may forbid. There is, for ex¬ 
ample, the teaching of catechism. We shall 
never forget the scene which met our eyes on a 
memorable occasion when we were going 
through a Catholic settlement deep in the 
slums of one of our great cities. In a huge 


6 o ^ome Lenten Substitutes 

dingy room a half-dozen Catholic teachers of 
catechism, each surrounded by a noisy class, 
were trying to keep order and at the same 
time to put into the minds and the hearts of 
their young charges the knowledge and love 
of our holy Faith. We went from one group 
to the other, and finally paused at the most 
ragged, noisy, and boisterous of them all, a 
crowd of boys from the slums, unwashed, ill- 
dressed, and most vociferous, who were 
thronging about a patient, sweet-faced girl 
who, with consummate equanimity, was read¬ 
ing them their lesson in such pauses of the 
noise as gave her a chance to make herself 
heard at all. “How did you get into this 
work^” we asked, when the turmoil had a 
little subsided. The young teacher smiled. 
“Why, Father,” said she, “it happened in 
this way. Last Lent I said to my confessor, 
Tather, I cannot fast, and so I must ask a dis¬ 
pensation. Will you suggest to me some good 
works that I may do in place of fasting^ 
But, please, oh, please, do not ask me to 
teach catechism! That is the very thing of 
things that I cannot bear to do.’ I imagined 
that the Father smiled to himself, for there 


Some Lenten Substitutes 6l 

was a queer note in his voice when he an¬ 
swered : ‘My child, to teach catechism is the 
very thing that I shall suggest to you for 
your penance, since you dislike it so much. 
Let us make a bargain. Do you go to the 
settlement and offer to teach catechism there 
just for the time of Lent to the worst and 
most unruly class that they can give you. 
Only persevere until Easter time, and I guar¬ 
antee that you will like it so well by then 
that you will keep it up of your own ac¬ 
cord.’ So I came down here,” she continued, 
“and took this class, and I have been at it 
ever since.” “Did the Father’s prediction 
come true, and do you like it?” we inquired. 
“I have gotten to love it,” she said, “and I 
would not give it up for anything in the 
world. These are such lovely boys, so af¬ 
fectionate and responsive.” We looked about 
on that unruly throng and marveled at the 
power of Christian charity. Yet she was 
wise enough, this young teacher of catechism, 
to be able to know the warm hearts under 
these tattered coats. She loved the work in 
spite of its difficulties and unpleasantness. 
And so might you, dear reader, if you did 


62 ^ome Lenten Substitutes 

penance by teaching catechism, grow to love 
the work so much that you would continue 
in it and become one of those who will shine 
like stars for all eternity because they have 
instructed many unto justice. 

The giving of one’s leisure time during 
Lent to good works instead of to amusements 
is likewise a very efficacious means of pen¬ 
ance. To those who love entertainment—and 
their number is many in this age of multi¬ 
plied amusements—merely to refrain from 
their usual recreations is a true and salutary 
penance. When the time so saved is given to 
good works, to sewing for the poor or for 
the missions, to visiting the sick, to helping 
to the spread of Catholic literature, even to 
reading and the study of serious and worthy 
things, the result is not an unworthy substi- 
ute for fasting. Any violence that we do to 
our less noble inclinations, any effort we 
make in behalf of our better selves and tio sub¬ 
due what is less gracious and worthy in us 
is fit to be offered up to God in union with 
the sufferings of Christ to take the place of 
the fasting which we find ourselves unable 
to endure. 


Some Lenten Substitutes 63 

So it should not be difficult for us, even 
though we are unhappily not able to keep 
the strict fast of Lent, to find efficacious 
substitutes in the penance of multiplied good 
works. Besides their efficacy for obtaining 
the remission of our sins and averting God’s 
judgments and just anger, these substitutes 
for fasting will bring many positive graces 
and holy satisfactions into our lives. Sin 
is the cause of all unhappiness and selfish¬ 
ness, the source of most misery. In propor¬ 
tion as we mortify the less noble elements 
of our nature our better selves expand and 
develop, and the lineaments of Christ show 
themselves in the countenance of our souls. 
If, subduing what is evil in us and mortifying 
our baser part, we keep Christ faithful com¬ 
pany through the sad days of Lent, we shall 
go with Him to a glorious Easter. No one 
drinks so deep of the joy of the Resurrection 
or has so large a part in the spiritual con¬ 
solations of Christ risen as he who has faith¬ 
fully and with great love kept company with 
Christ in His penances and sorrows. 


MISINTERPRETATIONS 

O NE sometimes sees men and women of 
zealous and fervent dispositions who 
are profoundly discouraged with 
things and have pretty well given up all ex¬ 
pectations of personal achievement for God. 
They started out with sanguine enthusiasm 
and promised themselves that somehow or 
other they would manage to do something 
worth while for their neighbor and the 
Church. They made plans with some pru¬ 
dence and forethought and started out to 
accomplish them. But something happened. 
A chill was cast upon their vigorous enthu¬ 
siasm; a cold discouragement was put over 
their zeal. 

If one could look into the causes of their 
disillusionment and despair, one would find 
that these were due to misinterpretations. 
While they were vigorously pushing forward 
the work they were engaged in, and feeling 
some security of success, a whisper arose from 
a thoughtless or malicious tongue. It was 
hinted and insinuated, or it was openly said 
64 


Misinterpretations 65 

and brought to their hearing, that they were 
working for personal ambition; that they 
were trying to make themselves prominent; 
that they were aiming at office, or endeavor¬ 
ing to be influential in the parish, or to stand 
well with the pastor, or were working for a 
place in some city-wide society, league, or as¬ 
sociation. The whisper declared that they 
were seeking their own interests, hoping to 
get some personal profit, or working from the 
desire of reputation. There are few things 
more trying to sensitive souls than this, that 
well-meant efforts should be misinterpreted. 
Such an insinuation falls upon them like a 
shower of stinging sleet and chills their fervor 
like a biting wind. It seems such cold malice 
and mean uncharitableness that any of those 
whom they know are cruel enough thus to 
impute their efforts entirely to selfishness or 
to suspect them of doing their good works 
merely from pride. 

Again, these accusations are the more dan¬ 
gerous and discouraging for such sanguine 
and energetic folk because they beget in them 
a fear and self-doubt and an uneasy feeling 
that the accusations may in part be true. The 


66 Misinterpretations 

competent official in a society, the active 
leader of the laity, must naturally depend 
for some part of his or her energy on natural 
gifts. To have an ambitious, energetic dis¬ 
position is a necessary requisite for getting 
along in such work. Side by side with the 
supernatural intention and the honest good 
will to serve God there goes, in most cases, 
a natural ambition and activity which is not 
only not wrong nor sinful, but which, well- 
directed, gives force and motive power to 
good work. What is required is not to crush 
but to govern and make supernatural this 
natural energy and ambition. But when one 
of these active, pushing, capable persons is 
accused of working merely out of interest and 
selfishness, then a chilling doubt comes over 
them whether after all it is worth while to 
go on. If they are merely working for self, 
if their motives are questionable, what is the 
use of so much effort So one finds energetic, 
capable men and women, after such bitter 
experience, fearful and distrustful of them¬ 
selves and of their own motives, and all be¬ 
cause of the whispering of an uncharitable 
tongue. 


Misinterpretations 67 

It is very wise, then, for those who are 
occupied with any sort of active work for the 
neighbor or the Church to fortify themselves 
betimes against the evils of misinterpretation 
and to see, besides, what real and lasting 
good they can get from this seeming evil. 
For, taken rightly and properly improved on, 
these misinterpretations, which seem so bitter 
to the taste of the soul and so utterly unkind 
and useless, are in fact excellent occasions 
for merit and help immensely to purify the 
heart and soul and direct the intention 
straight to God. 

To begin with, then, one has no occasion 
at all to be either surprised or vexed when 
such misinterpretations come upon one. As 
long as human nature is what it is, jealousy, 
suspicions, rash judgment, will from time to 
time be visited upon the good and the well- 
meaning. The devout and those who are en¬ 
gaged in charitable endeavor are sometimes 
singularly tempted to entertain an uncon¬ 
scious but none the less sharp and bitter feel¬ 
ing of jealously. So if they say a cutting 
word or make an unkind insinuation, there 
is no need to trouble about it at all. The 


68 Misinterpretations 

wise will take it as part of the ordinary course 
of events to be sometimes criticized and mis¬ 
understood. The truth is that when such 
things are said they are often an indication 
that honest, fruitful work is going on. For 
no one would trouble himself to cast suspi¬ 
cions or make misinterpretations if nothing 
were being done which might seem worthy 
of approval and praise. 

The occurrence of such misinterpretations 
is not a reason for leaving even a particle of 
good work undone. It is a very shrewd device 
of the devil to discourage good people by 
making them think they are doing their good 
works entirely out of personal interest. Those 
who fall a victim to misinterpretations, 
whether from their friends or enemies, should 
reflect a little that words are only words, as 
The Imitation says, and fly through the air, 
but hurt not a stone. Humility and prudence 
and common sense require us to pay only 
so much attention to them as they deserve, 
and mean and unjust accusations can harm 
us only if we listen to them and allow one 
particle of work go undone for fear of our 
motive being misunderstood. 


Misinterpretations 69 

Courage, too, and fidelity to God’s work 
require that we should go manfully through 
these little difficulties, and there should be 
no small consolation for those who are thus 
misunderstood in the reflection that idle and 
listless folk are never envied, and that those 
who do nothing are quite safe from misin¬ 
terpretation because they are unworthy of 
any notice at all. But the most precious 
part of these misinterpretations is, of course, 
the aid they give to perfection. To become 
gradually perfect, gradually to make our in¬ 
tentions entirely pure and as free as can be 
from selfish motives, entirely right and 
directed straight toward God, is no matter 
of a moment. It requires long and patient 
effort and struggle. It is to be accomplished 
only by the grace of God, and we are urged 
on toward it sometimes by the roughest cir¬ 
cumstances. If, day after day, we see every¬ 
thing we do taken in good part by everyone 
and receive a great deal of cooperation and 
approval, then we may come in time to think 
that all is perfectly well with us and that 
our motives are entirely right and pure. But 
let someone misinterpret our actions and call 


70 Misinterpretations 

our motives in question, and see what a fine 
searching of our conscience results and how 
much we are helped to discover just how far 
our intention is supernatural and independent 
of human praise and approval. These little 
joltings of criticism and misinterpretation 
wake up our souls and shake us into consider¬ 
ing and testing the purity of our intentions. 

Such an occasion is, besides, a very excel¬ 
lent spur to greater effort in God’s service. 
Those who have the proper spirit and possess 
that fine and strong fibre of perseverance 
which alone will achieve perfection find their 
metal tested and their endurance tried in a 
very precious way by misinterpretation. Not 
without extraordinary reason does the Holy 
Scripture so often compare the life of man on 
earth to a warfare. It is a continual fight, 
a hand-to-hand tussle with enemies within 
and without us, and valor and perseverance, 
soldierly courage, and persistence are required 
to win to success. It is entirely hopeless for 
us to get quite creditably and honorably 
through this struggle called life unless we 
have that spiritual stamina, that toughness 
of the muscles of the will, that dogged deter- 


Misinterpretatio ns 71 

mination to keep on. St. Ignatius has beau¬ 
tifully expressed all the high resolve of 
Christ’s soldiers in his simple prayer: “Grant 
me, O Lord, to give and not count the cost; 
to fight and forget the wounds; to work and 
not seek for rest.” 

It is the heavy blows of life which best 
test and toughen the metal of our resolution. 
That is why God in His Providence allows 
that the world should be so hard a place to 
live in. We are not at the end of our jour¬ 
ney, but in its weary middle of the way. We 
are not at the victory, but in the thick of 
the fight. We are not ready to rest until we 
have learned how to keep on in war and labor. 
We need severe exercise, hard blows, and 
difficult going to exercise our souls. Now, 
among the heaviest blows, the most trying 
thrusts which explore the joints of our spirit¬ 
ual armor and try our dogged perseverance 
are precisely these digs of misinterpretation. 
To be told that one is ambitious when one 
really wishes to do good work for the neigh¬ 
bor and the Church is an excruciating thrust 
which jogs us to the teeth. To be accused of 
selfish intentions when we are fighting a 


72 Misinterpretations 

battle for God’s interests digs into the tender- 
est nerves of our spirit. Thus, again and 
again until death, the onslaught of rash judg¬ 
ment will follow us, always bitter and hard, 
but, well endured, always salutary and puri¬ 
fying. Each wound is bitter even to the most 
valiant soldier, but if we have perseverance 
and strength to stand this trial, it is very 
likely that we shall have courage to go 
through all other difficulties and gain a vic¬ 
tory at last. 


AN OLD-FASHIONED VICE 

T he names of the seven deadly sins arc 
most familiar to all of us who have 
learned our catechism, and at one 
time or another we have seriously considered 
how far the faults that lead up to them or 
accompany them are to be found in our own 
character. Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, 
gluttony, envy, and sloth. Here are the roots 
and sources of those transgressions that from 
the beginning have dishonored and ruined our 
human nature and spoiled the image of God 
in us. And we know full well, if we know 
ourselves at all, that the evil inclinations, 
the sudden temptations and perverse longings 
of our hearts will betray us into one or into 
all of those deadly sins unless we watch over 
and check the lower part of our nature. 

“I am a man, and nothing that is human 
is altogether foreign to me,” sings the old 
Latin poet, and the groaning multitudes of 
men re-echo his words throughout the ages, 
struggling under the burden of their common 
temptations. The roots of sin, the tinder of 
73 


74 Old-Fashioned Vice 

temptation, are in every human heart, and 
it has been well said that the difference be¬ 
tween a rogue and an honest man is not that 
the one has temptations, the other none, but 
that the one has temptations and yields, the 
other has temptations and resists them. In 
one form or another temptation and the in¬ 
clination to sin is present in every human ex¬ 
perience. There is no one who may not from 
time to time profitably go over the list of the 
seven deadly sins and consider how far the 
ugly tendencies of which they are the last 
evil flower and the final and horrible fruit 
are present in his soul, so as to take precau¬ 
tions and scotch the wicked shoots before 
they grow rank and bear their fruit of woe. 

It is a maxim in the spiritual life that no 
one becomes very wicked all of a sudden. 
By slow degrees, sometimes almost imper¬ 
ceptibly, bad inclinations grow and ripen in 
the soul, and the sudden occasion, the temp¬ 
tation that breaks down the last barrier to 
sin and shows the wickedness that has been 
slowly ripening, is no more the whole cause 
of the sin, than is the last hot day that heats 
the festering swamp and brings the poisonous 


An Old-Fashioned Vice 75 

flower to bloom, the whole cause of its poi¬ 
son, which has been slowly ripening for 
many days. 

Therefore, if we are careful to discipline 
ourselves in little things and repress and gain 
control of the bad inclinations of our nature 
and our character, we shall be safe, in God’s 
merciful providence, from the gross and hor¬ 
rible deeds which we associate with the names 
of the seven deadly sins. On the other hand, 
if we are careless about watching over the 
wicked tendencies in our human nature which 
show themselves in their grossest form in 
these deadly sins, we shall inevitably fall 
into many venial offenses, which soil the soul 
and weaken its power of resisting temptation. 
So that it is a practice approved by the old 
masters of the spiritual life, and recom¬ 
mended in the great book of the Spiritual 
Exercises, sometimes to examine ourselves on 
the seven deadly sins—not so much to dis¬ 
cover whether we have committed any gross 
offenses, but to see how far the vices from 
which they spring are gaining root in our 
soul. 

But there is a queer difference in the atti- 


76 An Old-Fashioned Vice 

tude which even good persons have toward 
the several deadly sins. De la Rochefou¬ 
cauld says somewhere among his brilliant 
epigrams against human nature: ‘‘One finds 
a great many people who bewail their bad 
memory, but very few who complain about 
their poor intellect."’ So also one finds many 
good people who admit quite freely, to them¬ 
selves at least, that they are somewhat in¬ 
clined to pride, for example, for that seems 
rather a lofty vice—though it is the head of 
them all and overthrew Lucifer—^but who 
would not for the world suspect, even in their 
own most private consideration, that they 
are somewhat victims of gluttony, envy or 
sloth. In the old-fashioned spiritual works 
these vices came in for a round share of warn¬ 
ing and blame, and the saints have been 
deeply troubled about the—to us—very 
slight and insignificant traces of these bad 
things which they found in their white and 
blameless hearts. 

But modern Christians, even the devout, 
are inclined to take it for granted that these, 
and especially sloth, need give them no great 
trouble. For sloth is, in their half-conscious 


An Old-Fashioned Vice 77^ 

if not in their deliberate judgment, rather an 
old-fashioned vice and one that does not need 
much self-searching to root out in these stir¬ 
ring times. In fact, nowadays, surprisingly 
little is said about the vice of sloth. Some 
time since, in glancing over some printed out¬ 
lines of discourses issued for modern preach¬ 
ers, we were suddenly aware that the sug¬ 
gested subjects for sermons proceeded quite 
orderly down the list of the deadly sins until 
they came to gluttony and sloth. Then these 
subjects of consideration were entirely 
omitted, as though for modern hearers their 
discussion might just as well be left out alto¬ 
gether. 

One might think that there is less danger 
of sloth nowadays than at other times in the 
world’s history because there are so many 
calls to action and because activity is so much 
the spirit of the age. Yet if one considers 
the nature of the vice of sloth this comfort¬ 
able assurance of its rarity in our age receives 
a rather wicked jolt. A huge activity along 
some lines is unhappily quite compatible with 
sinful sloth in other spheres of effort. A 
man may be wearing himself out with effort 


78 An Old-Fashioned Vice 

in the things of this life and of the present, 
and yet be rusting away with sloth in the 
things of eternity. 

The dictionary informs us that sloth is 
disinclination to exertion, laziness, habitual 
indolence. The word was derived, so stu¬ 
dents tell us, from “slow,” and slow-th or 
sloth is a slowness and disinclination to bestir 
oneself when there is question of some duty 
to be done or some task to be accomplished. 
This slowness, indulged and humored when 
there is question of a duty binding under 
serious obligation, becomes a deadly sin; 
yielded to in the case of lesser duties it has a 
lesser guilt and punishment. Only a very 
little knowledge of the world and of human 
nature is required to see that one may be 
exceedingly active and energetic in some 
sphere of exertion which appeals to his na¬ 
ture and inclination, and at the same time 
may yield to deplorable and sinful sloth so 
far as regards his religious duties and the 
work that is incumbent on him, but to which 
he does not feel naturally inclined. 

It is of course in the spiritual life and in 
regard to our religious duties that sloth is 


An Old-Fashioned Vice 79 

most dangerous, and just here too it is most 
insidious in its approaches. Nature itself 
provides us with a set of impulses, appetites, 
desires, that ensure our reasonable exertions 
when there is question of the welfare of our 
body. The need to make a living, to secure 
food, clothing, shelter, is the most universal 
and powerful natural stimulus to industry in 
life, and it is supplemented by the other 
cravings of human nature, by ambition, the 
wish for pleasure, the desire of possessions, 
which overcome the natural laziness of men 
and set them working for the good things 
that they cannot otherwise come at. But, 
unhappily, in the spiritual life, though the 
incentives to exertion are incomparably 
greater—for we are working not for our live¬ 
lihood in time but for our happiness in eter¬ 
nity—still the motives for exertion do not ap¬ 
peal so strongly to human nature, and so 
there is far greater danger of sloth and of 
neglect in spiritual matters. 

And, in their various degrees, a very great 
number of Catholics suffer from this vice of 
sloth in spiritual things. Though it has gone 
out of fashion to speak of the deadly sin of 


8 o An Old-Fashioned Vice 

sloth, the thing itself is much among us. 
Look into your own life and you will doubt¬ 
less see some traces of that spiritual laziness, 
that disinclination to exert your mind and 
your body in the service of God, which is 
the consequence of some yielding to the vice 
of sloth. For the whole age, as we find it, 
is sunk in a vast indifference toward the con¬ 
cerns of eternity, and we who live in the 
age are likely to be tainted with its sickness. 
Indifferentism, the neglect of all religious 
practice, have grown upon our people with 
the growth of material prosperity and of 
pleasure. It needs a vivid and realizing 
faith, a living charity and the special help 
of God, which comes with prayer, to go 
against this current of religious lethargy and 
to keep up one’s energetic longing and striv¬ 
ing for the kingdom of heaven. 


THE CYNOSURE OF HISTORY 

E very day, somewhere within an easy 
distance of your home, occurs the 
most stupendous event, the most 
precious happening, in the history of the 
world. To this great occurrence all the na¬ 
tions of the earth looked forward either with 
blind longing or with ardent faith from the 
very beginning. To this all future genera¬ 
tions shall look back, so long as the world 
lasts, deriving from its efficacy whatever they 
have of holiness or of salvation. For the Sac¬ 
rifice of the Mass offered every morning in 
your parish church, as in so many Catholic 
churches throughout the world, is the true 
though unbloody repetition of the sacrifice 
of Calvary. When you assist at that holy 
sacrifice it is as though you stood beneath 
the cross with the Blessed Mother and with 
St. John, the beloved disciple, and offered, 
in union with the Sacred Heart, that obla¬ 
tion of the life and blood of God made man 
which is made for the salvation of the entire 
world. 


8i 


82 The Cynosure of History 

There are certain points in secular his¬ 
tory to which all after ages look back with 
breathless interest and immense attention. 
They are the turning-points of human af¬ 
fairs, the places where the great stream of 
human events swerves aside from its course 
and makes a new bed in its way down the 
ages. Sometimes it is the birth of a great 
nation that so changes the current of events 
for all time, as when Athens came out into 
the sunlight of history, or the mythical twins 
began to raise the walls of Rome. Some¬ 
times it is the victory of one people over 
another which decides the lordship of the 
world and alters the flow of customs and 
thought, as when Rome conquered Carthage 
or the free Greek people beat back the in¬ 
vading hosts of Asia. Sometimes it is the 
rise of a great leader or the writing of an 
epoch-making book, as when Augustus came 
to rule or Homer or Dante began to sing. 
Such events shine forever in the history of 
the world and become known to all men who 
have any claim to culture or to learning. 
Precious moments, they acquire an immor- 


The Cynosure of History 83 

tality of memory, and their fame is handed 
down from generation to generation. 

What a privilege it is, by common consent 
of men, to be present at one of these cardinal 
points of history! Men write records of 
their participation in such stirring scenes. 
They hand down in their family as an heir¬ 
loom of memory that at such and such a 
time an ancestor of that stock was present 
at the battle of Agincourt, or fought with 
Washington, or carried a rifle or a sword at 
Lexington or Bunker Hill. One such mo¬ 
ment of glory as to have been present and 
have assisted at an event like this is thought 
enough for an entire lifetime, and it gives 
distinction, by common consent, not only to 
the fortunate individual himself but to his 
successors and descendants. 

Yet how few of mankind ever have the 
good fortune even to be witnesses of such 
stirring crises in history! They happen only 
very seldom, from the very nature of things. 
Those only witness them who chance to be at 
hand, and it is impossible to foresee just 
when their time will come. Indeed, it is for 
this reason that the witnessing of great events 


84 The Cynosure of History 

brings distinction with it. What only the 
few can boast of is all the more prized and 
envied by the many. We have societies of 
an exclusive kind whose membership is lim^ 
ited to those whose ancestors fought in the 
American Revolution. Were this not an 
unusual distinction, what sense would one 
see in making it a condition of membership 
or in beginning a new society to celebrate 
its possession 

But these great crises in history, important 
as they are in the esteem of men, dwindle 
into insignificance when they are compared 
with that stupendous and unique event which 
is repeated by the exercise of God’s almighty 
power, at your very doors and every day. 
For the holy sacrifice of the cross, which is 
truly and literally repeated day by day in 
the holy sacrifice of the Mass, makes pale 
and insignificant by comparison all events in 
secular history. It is incomparably more im¬ 
portant, more sublime, more fruitful in con¬ 
sequences, of more influence on the history 
of the world, than all the acts of princes 
or the victories of nations from the begin¬ 
ning of days. 


The Cynosure of History 85 

From the moment when the sin of Adam 
ruined our human kind, deprived us of sanc¬ 
tifying grace, of the sonship of God and of 
our title to heaven, and so deplorably injured 
our nature by depriving it of the friendship 
of Gk)d—from that dire moment all the hu¬ 
man race looked forward, knowingly or with 
blind desire, to the coming of a Saviour 
who would undo what Adam had done, win 
back for us the friendship of God, atone for 
all our transgressions, and redeem us from 
the power of the evil one. This immense 
yearning of the whole human race for a 
Saviour finds its most touching expression 
in the writings of the prophets of Israel, who 
both foretold and prayed for, with unspeak¬ 
able longing, the advent of the Redeemer 
of mankind. They even described, with a 
vividness that is amazing, the precise man¬ 
ner of that redemption by which the Christ 
was to restore mankind to the friendship of 
God. It was to be by the bloody death of the 
cross, by the offering and sacrifice of His 
blood and His life. 

All human history, therefore, led up to 
and culminated in that solemn and awful mo- 


86 The Cynosure of History 

merit when, on the bloody altar of Calvary, 
the eternal Son of God, made man, gave up 
His life for the salvation of His fellow-men. 
Before the cross of Christ were gathered all 
the ages of history, all the generations of the 
past, all the holy desires of humanity, all 
the asprrations of the human heart after jus¬ 
tice. When the Son of Man bowed His head 
upon His bosom and breathed forth His soul 
into the hands of His eternal Father, then the 
handwriting against us was blotted out for¬ 
ever, and the human race was saved from the 
power of the devil and brought back into the 
friendship of God. This redemption was in¬ 
deed to be applied to the individual soul 
through the sacraments of Christ’s Church. 
But the great deed was accomplished. Re¬ 
demption was secured. In the most awful 
and momentous event of history a God had 
given His life that God’s anger might be 
appeased. 

What a privilege, then, to have been able 
to assist, as did Mary and the Beloved 
Apostle and the little group of women who 
stood about the cross, at the adorable sacri¬ 
fice which Christ made to His eternal Father 


The Cynosure of History 87 

on Calvary. All the great turning-points of 
history are, in comparison with this, mere 
trivial episodes, inconsiderable and slight 
events. To have been able to be with Jesus 
on Calvary, to offer up oneself to God in 
union with His supreme oblation, is a privi¬ 
lege and favor not to be compared even with 
the participation in all the other great events 
of history together. Yet this sublime event 
was witnessed by only a small part of one ob¬ 
scure nation in the despised country of Judea 
and at a single moment in history. The vast 
spiritual riches, the eternal gain of being near 
and sharing with Christ in His sacrifice of 
Calvary was, so it appeared to uninitiated 
eyes, reserved only to those who with loving 
hearts stood about Him as He died. 

But God's goodness would not have it so. 
He, who is omnipotent, has exerted His om¬ 
nipotence in an astounding way so to repro¬ 
duce and multiply and continue that most 
momentous of all happenings that it is pos¬ 
sible for every Catholic, in every age of the 
world, in a thousand places, day by day and 
morning after morning, not merely to re¬ 
member or to commemorate the august sacri- 


88 The Cynosure of History 

fice of Calvary, but truly to assist at its un¬ 
bloody repetition and to come and stand with 
Christ and participate in the literal renewal 
of His sacrifice, being present there as really 
as were Mary and John and the holy women 
who assisted at the sacrifice of the cross. This 
is an astounding truth, an achievement possi¬ 
ble only to omnipotence. To be able to recall 
and renew such a moment of history required 
a divine power which can accomplish any¬ 
thing that does not involve a contradiction. 
God alone can renew, in the sacrifice of the 
Mass, the sacrifice of Calvary. Our faith in 
God is alone powerful enough to assure us 
of the truth of this mystery. In assisting 
at any Mass we become once more sharers 
in the sacrifice of Calvary. We partake in 
the true though unbloody repetition of the 
sacrifice of the cross. 

Of only one event in history is it possible 
to say with truth that all generations can 
be bodily and really present at its true and 
real repetition. All other actions of man¬ 
kind are past forever. They endure indeed 
in their consequences, in the traces they have 
left, in the memory of their occurrence. We 


The Cynosure of History 89 

may be present at them in imagination, in 
memory, through the written record or the 
remembered account. But of one event alone 
is it literally true that it is repeated over and 
over, really renewed, re-enacted for each suc¬ 
ceeding generation. Whoever would assist 
again at this stupendous sacrifice need only 
to enter a Catholic church at the hour of the 
Mass and kneel before the altar while the 
priest, minister of Christ, offers up again that 
unbloody sacrifice which is the true and real 
repetition of the bloody sacrifice of the cross. 
At the words of the consecration, when the 
sacrifice of the Mass is consummated, there 
occurs once more in a mystic manner and 
without the shedding of blood the offering 
of that redeeming oblation of the life and 
blood of Christ which wrought our ransom¬ 
ing on Calvary. 

What a motive and what a reason for un¬ 
wearying effort and continual endeavor to 
be present as often as we can at the sacrifice 
of the Mass! Need one point this moral or 
urge this conclusion? If Christ’s sacrifice is 
of all events in history the most blessed, the 
most momentous, the most important to par- 


90 The Cynosure of History 

take in, and if God has thought it worth His 
while to renew that stupendous sacrifice by a 
continuous and repeated exercise of His om¬ 
nipotence, should not we do all possible to 
apply to ourselves His exceeding bounty and 
to be present at what He has wrought such 
marvels to prepare 

With this stupendous wonder of God’s 
omnipotence in preserving for us the age-long 
repetition of the greatest moment of history 
goes also that other marvel of continuing for 
us the companionship of Christ’s presence and 
the nourishing of our souls with His precious 
body and blood. At the moment of the con¬ 
summation of the sacrifice of the Mass there 
becomes present on the altar under the forms 
of bread and wine the body of Christ and 
His true blood. 

He, the incarnate Son. of God, is really 
Emmanuel, God with us, to be our Guest, 
our Comrade, and our Food. Here again, in 
His infinite mercy and compassion. Almighty 
God has brushed away with a gesture of His 
omnipotence the common boundaries of space, 
matter, and time. He has secured for us and 
for all ages participation in that astounding 


The Cynosure of History 91 

privi-lege of being intimate companions and 
bosom friends of the Incarnate Word, which 
one would have said in all human probability 
was reserved for the small and favored group 
of apostles and disciples who conversed with 
Him familiarly and partook with Him of the 
Last Supper before His passion. What 
would, in the order of nature, have been the 
astounding privilege of the few is become, 
in the order of God’s extraordinary provi¬ 
dence, the common blessing of the many. 

History moves on with a relentless flow. 
Each happening as it comes and goes slips 
irrevocably into the past. Try as we may 
we never could recover one moment that is 
gone. But by God’s great mercy and al¬ 
mighty power the two most precious events 
in the history of the world have been re¬ 
newed and are perpetuated in so marvelous 
a manner that in every epoch, every day in 
every place in the world where the Mass is 
said and the Blessed Sacrament preserved, it 
is possible for the poorest and the lowliest of 
mankind to stand with Mary and the Be¬ 
loved Disciple and partake in Christ’s ines¬ 
timable sacrifice, to kneel with the apostles in 


92 The Cynosure of History 

the supper chamber and be fed like them on 
the true body of the Lord. 

Stirred by thoughts like these, who is there 
who cannot resolve to go more often to com¬ 
munion, to be present daily at Holy Mass. 
When the great judgment of God shall make 
vain the wisdom of men it will no longer be 
an honor to have assisted at the great mo¬ 
ments of secular history, the winning of vic¬ 
tories or the crowning of kings. At that hour 
those will be honored and blessed who have 
stood oftenest with Christ on Calvary and 
partaken oftenest of His sacred body. At 
that time this chapter of the earth's history 
will be closed and ended. It will be no 
longer possible for us then to heap up the 
constant merit of attendance at Mass and 
the receiving of Christ's body. Now is the 
acceptable time, now is the day of salva¬ 
tion. Let us seize betimes, while He still 
holds it out to us, the great gift of Grod. 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS 

I T is difficult to picture, in mere cold 
words, the spirit of Christmas. Many 
a one of novelists and essayists and 
poets has made the attempt right gallantly 
and striven hard to conjure up with warm, 
bright phrases and holly-woven sentences and 
paragraphs full of cheer the authentic spirit 
of that glorious time. Yet in all these efforts 
there is something flat and stale and unprofit¬ 
able. They cannot convey, even these shrewd 
artificers in words, all the glow of cheer, the 
warmth of love, the blaze of kindliness and 
good feeling that light the Christmas air and 
make eyes sparkle and cheeks grow ruddy on 
Christmas morning. 

Of all these seasons of the year this is, by 
common vote, the dearest and the cheeriest. 
A certain infantile delight, a delicious child¬ 
ishness, a rejuvenescence of old hearts and 
weary minds possesses the world at Christmas. 
All the outward harmless folly and mirth 
and merriment are but the expression of this 
inward glow that catches the heart of the 
93 


94 The Spirit of Christmas 

world. Men and women forget their years 
and lay off the load of care with which they 
have burdened themselves during all the 
other months, to grow glad in December, 
feeling the approaching warmth of the child¬ 
like feast. The selfish grow light-hearted in 
these rare moments when they think and plan 
entirely for others. The cold of heart are 
kindled despite themselves with a sympathy 
and tenderness they feel at no other season. 

The sight of a man laden with bundles 
of various shapes and sizes tied with red 
ribbon and edged with holly, hurrying along 
and smiling to himself on a winter’s evening, 
evokes a feeling quite irresistible and shared 
by all humanity. No one can quite with¬ 
stand the influence of Christmas. It works 
insensibly upon one by means of the smiling 
faces of children, the worried joy in the looks 
of fathers and mothers, the delighted frolics 
of Christmas decorations, even in the staid 
store windows, the shouts of boys, the ringing 
of bells. Above all, it appeals to one through 
the churches, blazing with light and heavy 
with smells of cedar and holly and winter 
flowers, and crowded with throngs of wor- 


The Spin I of Christmas 95 

shippers who cluster about the crib and look 
with shining eyes upon the Babe and the 
Mother, the Wise Men, the shepherds and 
the sheep. 

It casts its spell on young and old, this 
most merry and warm of seasons, astonish- 
ingly glowing at the very heart of rimy mid¬ 
winter. How the children are impressed by 
it! It is especially the feast of children. 
See how they cluster around the crib, their 
bright young eyes round with wonder, and 
look at the little Child and all the group 
that surrounds Him, pointing with chubby 
fingers and whispering with eager voices who 
each one may be, the Blessed Virgin and St. 
Joseph, the shepherds and the kings. Here 
they drink in without words the lesson of 
God’s love, seeing Him become a little baby 
for their sake and thinking how cold He must 
be on the wintry straw for which for their 
love He has left the warmth and light of His 
Father’s house in heaven. The wonder of 
the time, its warm delight and brooding joy 
enter their hearts through their eyes and then 
come back to glow on their cheeks and shine 
in their Christmas smiles. 


g 6 The Spirit of Christmas 

What a season of unforgettable joy and 
delight is Christmas to children! To Catho¬ 
lic children who see Jesus in the crib of 
Bethlehem and receive Him into their hearts 
at the Mass of Christmas morning it is a 
time that molds their very lives and leaves 
an inextinguishable fire in their hearts and 
an undying imprint on their souls, so that 
to their life's last end they never will forget 
the spiritual and bodily glow of Christmas 
morning. 

The old folk, too, grow young again at 
heart on Christmas. Memories of past 
Christmases struggle with the Christmas of 
today to make their cheeks tingle and their 
eyes grow bright on the merry morning. The 
little ones' glee, the laugh of the children 
and the flicker of the Christmas candle light 
in their mind the fires of past Christmases. 
They grow young again perforce, and make 
merry with the zest of youth. Christmas is 
for them the feast not only of the Christ 
Child, but of their own past childhoods, when 
they gathered about the crib and looked, as 
these little ones look to-day, with staring eyes 


The spirit of Christmas 97 

and shining faces, to see where the little In¬ 
fant lay in the manger upon the straw. 

But all this outward joy and merry-making 
is in truth not yet the heart and soul of 
Christmas. Many a poet has thought so, and 
many a writer of tales has made it his only 
aim to put into words the outward cheer and 
stir and glow of the holiday season. The 
very steam of rich plum puddings curls and 
glows in spicy fragrance through the ripple 
of their verse or the lilt of their prose. Holly 
and mistletoe and the crackle and spurting 
of yuletide logs and the drip of roasting beef 
and the hiss of savory chines are sweet in their 
prose and their song. The circle of crowing 
youngsters about the Christmas tree and the 
ring of smiling elders around the fire are 
painted to the life. One may read their glow¬ 
ing pages and drink warm and spicy draughts 
of the mirth and merriment of the Christmas 
season. Yet, for all that, these masters of 
sugary speech have not contrived to mingle 
in their fine confections the real and inner 
savor of the spirit of Christmas. 

For Christmas is the feast of heavenly 
love. All the warm rejoicing, all the con- 


98 The Spirit of Christmas 

tented cheer, the boards groaning with gener¬ 
ous food, the trees hung with lights and gifts 
and dainties, the wreaths of holly and of fir, 
sprigs of mistletoe and Christmas candles— 
all these are but the outward expression, the 
traditional symbols handed down from merry 
Christmases long ago, of a world’s rejoicing 
in the Incarnation, of the jubilation of a 
Christian people over the birth of their leader, 
their Saviour and their King. 

It is this joy at the great gift of God that 
gives the sense to Christmas gifts. Men spread 
their own gifts with wholesale generosity 
among their fellows in memory and in imi¬ 
tation of that celestial and most jubilant gift 
whereby God gives His own Son, true God of 
true God, Light of Light, begotten not made, 
one of essence with His Father in all eternity, 
to be our Companion and our Food, our Vic¬ 
tim and our Reward. All the feasting and 
the cheer of Christmas are but the eager effort 
of human nature to show forth in bodily de¬ 
light the dignity and honor of those human 
bodies whereof the eternal Son of God has 
deigned this day to choose one and to come 
forth clad in our own very flesh, having taken 


The Spirit of Christmas 99 

a human nature, a body and a soul like our 
own in all things, sin only excepted, in the 
most pure womb of the ever Blessed Virgin 
Mary. Besides, it is of our nature, since 
we are compounded of flesh and spirit, to ex¬ 
press our spiritual joy in terms of corporal 
feasting. The body must share with the soul 
in a partnership of delight. The meats and 
viands, the presents and good cheer, the lights 
and wreaths, the songs and melodies of 
Christmas are but the outward symbols of 
an inner joy that craves expression. 

Then, too, at no other feast of all the 
year does bodily cheer and the feasting of 
the flesh so well accord with the mystery of 
the season as at Christmas time. Then the 
Word, having become our flesh, comes to 
dwell amongst us, a man as we, eating our 
food, sharing our drink, living our life of 
the body and the soul, like unto us in all 
things save only for our sins. On Christmas 
we feast with Christ, sitting at His table of 
the bounteous earth which He has spread 
with viands and which He comes to share 
with us, lending a supernal glory and a 
heavenly cheer to our earthly merriment. We 


lOO The Spirit of Christmas 

have given Him to eat who feeds all flesh. 
We have welcomed him to our table who 
makes the fruitful fields and the teeming 
waters and air minister our food. We have 
sat with Him at the banquet who has formed 
our flesh and keeps it, and have welcomed 
Him in the flesh whom the far ages vaguely 
dreamed of with longing and whom the 
prophets yearned for, worshipping Him as 
their God whom we know also as our Com¬ 
panion, our Saviour and our soul’s dear Food. 
What wonder, then, that we feast and make 
merry with all our hearts, carried away by 
innocent joy and Christmas cheer, at the 
thought of God’s great love and in memory 
of His all-including gift to us^? 

But we must keep ever vividly in mem¬ 
ory, we Christians who rejoice, even cor¬ 
porally, in the feast of the God’s infinite love, 
that Christmas is not alone the feast of God’s 
love for man, but also of man’s "ove for God. 
Christ has not only come to dwell with us, 
clad in our flesh, but He has also lifted up 
our flesh by the unction of His Spirit so that 
we may feast. with him in soul, become 
sharers of the banquet table of God as 


101 


The Spirit of Christmas 

He is sharer of the tables of men. There¬ 
fore through all our merriment must run the 
golden strand of heavenly love. Our Christ¬ 
mas feasting must be lit through with un¬ 
earthly charity. For that spiritual feasting 
to which He bids us is as much above the 
feast of the body as heaven is higher than 
earth. While, therefore, the bodily cheer and 
earthly merriment of Christmas are a good 
and proper setting for the feast, the spiritual 
side of this singular day of rejoicing is in¬ 
comparably more important. Christmas is 
Christ’s Mass by the true and ancient mean¬ 
ing of the word. Christ’s Mass, whereat the 
memory of Christ’s threefold birth is sung, 
first from all eternity in the bosom of His 
Father, then on that rare day in time when 
he lay in the bosom of His Mother Mary, 
and last on every day until the world’s last 
end, when He is born again in the bosoms 
of His faithful followers. Therefore he who 
has not heard Christ’s Mass and caught its 
spiritual joy on Christmas morning has 
missed the spirit of the feast, and his Christ¬ 
mas joy and feasting is a hollow thing and 
a mockery. 


102 The Spirit of Christmas 

With Christ’s Mass should come Christ’s 
communion, the mingling of our soul with 
the spirit of the Babe of Bethlehem, the feed¬ 
ing of our hungry spirits upon His sacred 
flesh. Who that is worthy of the name of 
Christian will not receive Christ’s saving body 
and blood with deep devotion on Christmas 
morning? It is the burning desire of the 
Word made flesh to come into our hearts. 
For this He has left the warmth of heaven 
for the cold air of earth. We must warm 
Him again in our hearts on Christmas morn¬ 
ing. And through the entire day each 
Christian home should keep in all its ways the 
spiritual meaning of the feast. There should 
be a crib of Bethlehem, lovingly made and 
lit and placed where the children can come 
and look upon it and where their elders may 
tell them and remind themselves of the true 
inward meaning of Christmas. There should 
be gifts and bounty to the poor as well as 
presents to one’s own, and some needy family 
should be warmed and fed on Christmas day, 
in memory of the charity of Christ, before 
one’s own little group gathers about the 
Christmas board. A gift to the missions in 


The Spirit of Christmas 103 

those far lands where the sad pagan peoples 
know not even the name of Him who was 
born on this day should also go forth among 
our other Christmas gifts. In a word, all 
that can serve to link our Christmas festival 
with a memory and a love of Christ should 
be done with reverence on this great feast 
of His love for man and man’s love for Him. 

If we bear all these things in mind, then 
Christmas shall be indeed for us a true 
Christ’s Mass, a feast of heavenly love. We, 
in a way that the world without the Church 
can never understand, shall have captured the 
true spirit and soul of Christmas. For this 
is par excellence the feast of heavenly love, 
and all its great rejoicing but points to that 
inner mystery. He who loves Christ well 
and is well loved by Christ shall alone taste 
the full joy and glowing cheer of Christmas. 


ON THE MAKING OF FACES 
HERE is a rule of our human develop¬ 



ment which is quite awesome in its 


^ significance to our individual selves. 
We are continually suffering or profiting from 
its application. You as you are, and 1 as I 
am, and such a one as such a one is, stand, 
all of us, as living evidences of the applica¬ 
tion of this principle. Yet how little some 
of us attend to its importance! The mo¬ 
mentous principle is this, that we make our 
characters as we make our faces, by the 
repetition of casual actions, and that every 
good thing we do and every bad thing we 
do writes its impress on our minds and hearts 
as it does upon our bodily countenances. 

This is only another way of saying that 
actions make habits. A terse truth easily 
told; yet, if we understand and apply it, a 
most precious guide to the correction of what¬ 
ever we perceive to be amiss within us. It 
is the short formula for molding our charac¬ 
ter, rooting out our vices and implanting 
virtues in us. 


104 


On the Making of Faces 105 

You may have observed how, after a cer¬ 
tain time and to an experienced observer, a 
man’s face is the index of his character, the 
record of his previous history of emotions 
and expressions. On the changeable and 
fleshy tablets of the countenance are written 
subtle but legible records of most human 
qualities and passions. Benignity and kind¬ 
ness a thousand times repeated write the un¬ 
mistakable characters of a heart that is be¬ 
nign and kind, even on a man’s expression 
of countenance, so that very little children 
can read them there, and will come to such a 
one and shrink from that other face which 
is written over with severity and unkindness. 
We have all our own skill, conscious or un¬ 
conscious, of reading countenances, and, al¬ 
though we are often unjust and mistaken, we 
still trust in our deductions; which would 
seem to show that there is a human instinct 
to try to read the heart from the face. 

How was this fleshy record written? By 
countless acts of gentleness or harshness. 
Each time the obsequious muscles gathered 
themselves into lines of rudeness or of kind¬ 
ness they learned the more to hold those out- 


io6 On the Making of Faces 

lines and contours to which they were becom¬ 
ing bit by bit accustomed. They were ac¬ 
quiring the habit of that expression, and the 
outward habit of the face forms but a visible 
index to the far more significant and mighty 
inward habit of the mind and heart. For if 
each new deliberate action was insensibly but 
surely changing the expression of the counte¬ 
nance, then, with a much more certain and 
radical action, each exercise of goodness or 
yielding to evil was having its inward ef¬ 
fect in moulding the character and the heart. 
If it is true, and it is true in a real sense, 
that we are constantly making our own faces, 
then it is true in a much deeper sense 
that we are forever moulding and forming 
the countenances of our souls, which men 
term our character. 

A man’s habits have been called his second 
nature, and indeed they constitute a nature 
more sure in its operations and more cal¬ 
culable in its influence on his actions than 
the inborn disposition which he has from na¬ 
ture itself. Every human being comes to 
the consciousness of existence with a certain 
set of propensities and inclinations which of 


On the Making of Faces 107 

themselves tend to draw him into action. 
Thus some are timid and some bold; some are 
inclined to ease and others to energetic ef¬ 
fort; some are gentle, others rude—and so 
through all the characteristics of humanity. 
One can see these traits quite clearly even in 
children, and might predict what they would 
be in after life did one not know how power¬ 
fully the individual can change his character 
by actions contrary to the inborn inclina¬ 
tion. 

For let a man who is by nature timid and 
retiring practice assurance and courage, or 
even let him be thrown into circumstances 
which force him to the exercise of these quali¬ 
ties, and he will soon become more bold. 
Get him to repeat again and again these acts 
of daring, and his courage will become a 
rooted characteristic counteracting by the 
force of habit what may be a native timidity. 
So, too, of most other inclinations. Let a 
man by nature inactive and inert resolutely 
repeat acts of industry and he will acquire 
an energetic habit which will cloak over and 
perhaps quite conquer his native sluggish¬ 
ness. If one is by disposition rude and un- 


lo8 On the Making ef Faces 

kind, who does not know how the repetition 
of acts of deliberate courtesy and kindness 
will breed the contrary habits, until the boor 
may become a gentleman and the inconsid¬ 
erate person grow to be courteous^ 

Even the superficial training of good breed¬ 
ing is singularly efficacious to subdue and 
change the natural instincts of men and 
women into the polished habits of refined so¬ 
ciety. Everyone knows, either from experi¬ 
ence or hearsay, the ease and polish which 
good breeding bring to the perfect gentleman 
or lady. This exterior refinement is a result 
of training. It is the imposing of habits of 
consideration and courtesy upon natural self¬ 
ishness and rudeness. It gives a uniform and 
polished sureness of demeanor in return for 
many acts of self-disciplining one’s personal 
inclinations out of deference and regard to 
the sensibilities of others. 

But the most remarkable examples of this 
change of the countenance of the soul hy^ 
the cultivation of good habits is found in 
the careers of the saints. Under the influ¬ 
ence of the grace of God, and inspired by a 
wish to imitate in their degree the perfections 


On the Making of Faces 109 

of the Word made flesh, these heroes of God 
repressed to such a point those natural in¬ 
clinations which they perceived to be dis¬ 
pleasing to Him, and practised so deter¬ 
minedly the virtues which they knew Him to 
desire in them, that they changed to an as¬ 
tonishing extent their own inward character, 
making a new man, so to speak, out of the old 
and reproducing wonderfully from their 
diversity of character and disposition the 
lineaments of Christ, whom they thirsted and 
hungered to resemble. 

One might multiply examples. There was 
St. Francis de Sales, the sweetest of mortals, 
whose lips distilled gentleness and kindness, 
whose countenance drew even heretics by its 
engaging mildness and sweetness, and whose 
whole person, like his writings, was suffused 
with the genial sunshine of charity. Once 
on a time, speaking to an intimate friend 
who has preserved the saying for us, the 
saint confessed that he was by nature harsh 
and unkind, and that it was only the perse¬ 
vering effort of years that had subdued the 
unkind instincts in him. Repeated and de¬ 
liberate acts of gentleness and goodness had 


no On the Making of Faces 

so altered his countenance and his heart that 
from an unkind disposition he had acquired a 
nature sweet and kind like the nature of 
Christ. A very eloquent proof of the truth 
of this was the answer he gave once on a time 
when a very bad young man was brought to 
him for an admonition, in hopes that the saint 
could change his evil ways. The interview 
was fruitless, but through all his gentle re¬ 
proaches St. Francis maintained an air of 
the most equal sweetness. After it was over 
some one remarked that if the saint had been 
more stern the young man might have lis¬ 
tened to him. “It would have been no use,” 
said the saint; “and besides, I was afraid that 
if I allowed myself to speak harshly I would 
have lost the little drop of honey, the little 
bit of human kindness, which I have stored 
in my heart by the efforts of these many 
years.” He knew whence this characteristic 
of tender charity had come and with what 
infinite care and repeated effort he had gained 
it, knew, too, how easily lost by action is that 
which actions have acquired. Therefore he 
feared, even by one harsh saying, to distort 
the sweet and gentle countenance of his soul 


Ill 


On the Making of Faces 

which he had made by so many efforts during 
so many years. 

To ponder with realization upon this most 
practical principle of our human growth 
should give us no little consolation, it opens 
up such a practicable and immediate road to 
the perfecting of our disposition and our 
heart. We need not trouble about complex 
principles of spiritual progress nor vex our¬ 
selves with painful and confusing self-analy¬ 
sis. To correct a fault all we need is to set 
about perseveringly performing actions of the 
contrary virtue. To implant a good quality 
all we need attend to is the repetition of the 
corresponding good deed. This is the in¬ 
fallible way of developing our character, of 
making comely the countenance of our soul. 
It is, besides, the only way, barring a miracle. 
The laws of human nature ordain that by the 
repetition of good actions, and thus alone, 
good habits are formed and by the same 
simple means bad habits are rooted out. 

It is curious how well we know the prin¬ 
ciple in merely earthly matters, yet how slow 
we are to apply to our soul’s concerns the 
same obvious and practical principle. No 


112 


On the Making of Faces 

matter what men are training for, if it be a 
race or a boxing match, a trade or an art, they 
always go about learning it or increasing their 
dexterity by practice. It is practice which 
rounds out the muscles of the athletes, makes 
the sinews of the boxer hard as brass, teaches 
the artisan’s fingers to ply their task, gives the 
virtuoso brilliancy and technique, and rounds 
all human effort into that perfection of habit 
which we call skill, dexterity, achievement. 
Now what is practice but a repetition of the 
same action many times over until a habit is 
formed which becomes a second nature and 
operates without effort, with spontaneous 
ease? Our muscles and our mind are sub¬ 
ject to the same law. By repeated effort, by 
continual action in the direction to which we 
aspire, we can wonderfully change our bodies 
and our souls. 

Do not trouble any longer, therefore, about 
any deficiency which nature may have left in 
your character or your heart. The thing is 
remediable by the very simple means of perse¬ 
vering effort. Form for yourself a clear idea 
of what you wish to achieve, whether it be 
kindness or courage, industry or exactness, or 


On the Making of Faces 113 

any other virtue which the countenance of 
your soul most requires. Then, with deter-' 
mined perseverance, keep on performing ac¬ 
tions of that virtue. However tough the fibre 
of your heart or unyielding the stuff of your 
disposition, it will change and be moulded 
into the lineaments of the virtue you desire. 
We cannot change our bodily countenances so 
very much, try as we will (and this to some 
of us may well seem a pity!) but we can 
change as we will the countenances of our 
souls. It will be our everlasting honor and 
delight in heaven to have made those souls as 
near as can be to the image of our Lord. The 
means is close at hand, the unremitting exer¬ 
cise of those virtues which He has recom¬ 
mended and which surely mould our hearts 
to the likeness of His own. Action upon ac¬ 
tion, stroke by stroke, the work must be done, 
the slow and tedious sculpturing completed. 
But is not the task worth while? For what 
we do in time we shall see in eternity, and 
all the ages to come will never mar nor change 
the heavenly countenance we give our soul. 


BLIND SPOTS 


HERE is a curious fact in the physiology 



of the eye, which can be demonstrated 


by a simple experiment, that there is 
one point in the retina which is blind. What¬ 
ever part of the field of vision falls on that 
spot is quite invisible to us. It is true we 
are unconscious of this singular blind spot, 
perhaps because we are so used to it, perhaps 
because for one reason or another conscious¬ 
ness does not report this singular area of in¬ 
sensibility. But there it is, and it presents a 
curious anomaly. This bit of anatomical in¬ 
formation would have little enough signifi¬ 
cance for us did it not point to a correspond¬ 
ing anomaly of our intellectual and spiritual 
nature. For we have blind spots in our per¬ 
ceptions and comprehensions no less than in 
the retina of our eyes. 

Oddly enough we are unconscious, most of 
us, of our blindnesses of comprehension. 
Particularly do we wonderfully miss receiv¬ 
ing our lack of sympathy and discernment in 
dealing with one another. It is quite aston- 


Blind Spots 115 

ishing, indeed, how even highly intelligent 
persons will cherish blind spots in their 
sympathies and their affections and almost 
make a virtue of antipathies and gaps of com¬ 
prehension which come directly from a lack 
of understanding of the needs and distresses 
of others. Most of us are by nature tender¬ 
hearted and have honest compassion for the 
woes of others, providing only that we can 
get a glimpse of them. Most hardness and 
lack of sympathy comes rather from an in¬ 
ability to perceive or appreciate the trials of 
another than from any want of the virtue of 
compassion. That we are so lacking in feel¬ 
ing and sympathy is much more due to the 
blind spots in our intellectual comprehension 
than to any want of heart or coldness of feel¬ 
ing. But it is quite amazing how blind we 
can actually be to the woes of others and how 
insensible to their difficulties and inabilities. 
It is one of the standing wonders of human 
nature that, having such good hearts, we can 
contrive to use them so partially and with 
such scant comprehension. 

Those of us especially who notice in them¬ 
selves strong antipathies and violent preju- 


ii6 Blind Spots 

dices would do well carefully to examine, so 
to speak, the retina of their mind for blind 
spots of comprehension. Among good people 
there is never reason for violent antipathies 
and rooted prejudices. Their cause usually 
lies in the fact that the prejudiced person fails 
to see the counterbalancing good qualities 
which offset the uncomfortable traits of 
others, or neglects to notice those circum¬ 
stances which palliate objectionable features 
and explain away disagreeable characteristics. 
It is quite amusing sometimes, when it is not 
pathetic, to see how a perfectly good person 
oan become violently opposed to or prejudiced 
against another perfectly good individual 
whose shortcomings he has catalogued and 
discerned, but to whose good qualities he is 
singularly blind. These frank detesters of 
their neighbor sometimes excuse their antip¬ 
athies by mentioning the bad qualities of the 
one from whom they are estranged, as if they 
forsooth had no bad qualities of their own, 
or as if anyone could endure them on the 
same terms on which they detest their neigh¬ 
bor, by overlooking, that is, their counter- 


Blind Spots 117 

balancing good qualities and fixing the eye 
upon their faults alone. 

All human characters except the very per¬ 
fect, and even they in their degree, are a curi¬ 
ous mixture of goodness and of imperfection. 
The French have a shrewd saying that one is 
very likely to have the defects even of his 
good qualities, by which they mean that even 
good qualities usually have, as it were, a 
shadow to them, and involve some imperfec¬ 
tion. Thus those who are very gentle are apt 
to be timid and too yielding, the energetic 
are likely to be harsh and inconsiderate. The 
earnest and determined are in danger of be¬ 
ing domineering. In a word, it is extremely 
difficult for human nature to stop at the pre¬ 
cise and delicate balance between excess and 
defect. A strong virtue is likely to go so far 
in one direction that it passes the golden mean 
and falls into excess. 

Now there are three ways of dealing with 
such a character. One may be blind to the 
defects into which an excess of the good qual¬ 
ities in question has hurried their possessor 
and fix one’s gaze solely on the excellent char¬ 
acteristic without adverting to its accompany- 


118 Blind Spots 

mg defect. This is an amiable blindness, 
which neither the individual in question nor 
any reasonable person will be inclined to 
quarrel with except where the observer has 
the duty of correcting the faults of the one 
observed. Secondly, one may praise the good 
quality and still admit, though without ran¬ 
cor or antipathy, the defect which follows so 
close upon it. Or, lastly, one may be blind 
to the virtue and notice only the defect, a sad 
and inhuman sort of blindness which takes 
no account of the customary defects of human 
nature, but savagely demands a perfection 
not to be expected, and gives no credit for 
the good while blaming bitterly the evil. 

Yet, when one thinks, this is a very com¬ 
mon way of judgment among persons of 
strong antipathies. They somehow have a 
very vivid sense of the defects of those toward 
whom they feel antipathy. They see with 
singular clearness each detail of the less noble 
and more repelling qualities of their char¬ 
acter. But when it comes to acknowledging 
and esteeming the counterbalancing good 
qualities they are singularly obtuse. These 
better traits of their neighbor’s character 


Blind Spots 119 

seem to fall on some blind spot of their soul. 

It should serve as a corrective of such one¬ 
sided judgments to reflect that these same 
persons toward whom one is inclined to feel 
a sense of deep antipathy are heartily es¬ 
teemed and regarded with earnest friendship 
by others no less acute in their discrimination 
than oneself. The difference is that they 
are more inclined to see the good than the 
evil, are more intent on recognizing and prais¬ 
ing goodness than on blaming its accompany¬ 
ing defects. The one looks at the light, and 
for its sake forgets the shadows. The other 
is so keen in seeking for the shadows that 
he overlooks the abundance of the light. 
Which is the worthier attitude or the more 
noble impulse*? Since we must have blind 
spots somewhere about our mental composi¬ 
tion, is it better to keep them for our neigh¬ 
bor’s faults or to let them blot out his com¬ 
pensating virtues*? 

This same curious obtuseness of the mind 
follows us also into other departments of our 
spiritual life. There are some duties which 
we are inclined to see with vivid clearness and 
to lay stress on, to ourselves and others, with 


120 


Blind Spots 

insistent emphasis. At the same time there 
may be some other duties or obligations no 
whit less important, and perhaps even more 
deserving of our notice, to which we are curi¬ 
ously blind. Thus one sometimes finds men 
and women who are immensely concerned 
about some one point of duty, even to the 
verge of scrupulousness, while at the same 
time they calmly overlook other obligations 
which in comparison are very much more seri¬ 
ous. We have all reason to be cautious of 
these blind spots in our mental makeup. Un¬ 
less we notice and correct them we shall be 
biased and perhaps even unbalanced in our 
estimates of duty. 

It is not always easy to say from what 
these partialities to some duties and neglect 
of others spring. Perhaps from having had 
our attention sharply called to the one, while 
we were never admonished of the other. Per¬ 
haps from some ingrained inclination to the 
practice of this virtue and an unconscious 
aversion to the other. Perhaps because one 
is easy to us and the other hard. Whatever 
the reason may be, we are likely to be blind 
to one or another element of our duty, and 


121 


Blind Spots 

it is wise to examine ourselves from time to 
time and see just where our pet blindness may 
reside. 

There is no need of disquieting ourselves 
unduly because of these blind spots which we 
may suspect or perceive in our spiritual out¬ 
look. Rather the prudent thing is to endeavor 
rightly to survey our mental horizon and 
make compensation for any spots of dull per¬ 
ception which we discover there. The thing 
is, not to fret over the knowledge of our 
deficiencies, but to use that knowledge for 
their correction. Begin, then, and in a quiet 
way survey your own antipathies. There is 
So-and-So—a most displeasing character! 
Why ck> you find him or her so difficult to 
get on with? Because he has divers odious 
qualities. But consider that this very per¬ 
son is liked, esteemed, and made friends with 
by others quite as normal in their perception 
as you yourself. Must it not be that they 
discern attractive and engaging qualities 
which somehow miss your vision? They see, 
in other words, good elements in this char¬ 
acter to which you are blind, and for the sake 
of these good elements they are content to put 


122 


Blind Spots 

up with the faults they find there, just as your 
friends and you must mutually forbear with 
defects and failings for the sake of the pre¬ 
ponderating good you mutually find. 

Such a reflection should at least enable us 
to temper our dislikes and repress aversion. 
Even though we cannot see quite all the good 
that must be in others, we may at least take 
it on faith and make it a motive for forbear¬ 
ance and charity in our judgments. The 
very introspection and cataloguing of our 
aversions will do us good, because it will clear 
out many an old and musty corner of our 
heart where antipathies have gathered dust 
perhaps these many years, with no sound rea¬ 
son but only custom to justify their bitterness. 

It will be well for us, too, while we are 
about this introspection, to see whether there 
are not some blind spots in our outlook upon 
our own duties and responsibilities. Here, 
too, it will help us to rectify our judgment by 
comparing it with that of others. Are we not 
half conscious that our judicious friends and 
well-wishers think us a bit remiss in certain 
of our duties while we are laying emphasis 
on others of which they think we make a 


Blind Spots 123 

trifle too much^ If we have any means of 
learning the honest judgment of others, it will 
prove a very efficacious means of correcting 
our own viewpoint. The normal and general 
view can usually be found by getting a con¬ 
sensus of the views of several common-sense 
individuals, and it would surprise us some¬ 
times what light we should receive on our 
own conduct if we knew the judgment which 
others whose opinion is worth considering are 
passing on our ways of action. 

Taking it in all in all, then, this considera¬ 
tion of our spiritual blind spots is not with¬ 
out its use in the affairs of the soul. Those 
known and approved practices of the spiritual 
life, the examen of conscience, the practice of 
meditation, the hearing of spiritual instruc¬ 
tions, and the reading of spiritual books, all 
have their part to play in curing us of these 
mental blindnesses and this spiritual obtuse¬ 
ness. The practice of having a spiritual di¬ 
rector to whom one's interior life is known 
and who can point out one's blind spots and 
correct one's deficiencies of inward vision has 
been recommended these many days, though 
it has somehow fallen into disuse in our gen- 


124 Blind Spots 

eration. It has the notable advantage of 
helping one to rectify one’s blind spots by 
the aid of a prudent and disinterested friend 
who has no motive but one’s perfection and 
salvation, and who may be trusted to speak 
the plain and sincere truth and thus compen¬ 
sate for one’s defects of inward sight. 

Yet in the lack of such a director we can 
do much for ourselves by observing the at¬ 
titude and opinions of those about us and by 
manfully struggling against our antipathies 
and steadfastly looking at the good elements 
in others whom we are inclined to dislike. 
We can rectify our notions concerning our 
own duties and responsibilities by attending 
to the judgments of others whom we respect 
and whose opinions we can trust. In this 
way, our sight of our own selves and of others 
will more and more approach the normal 
vision, that golden mean and balance between 
extremes which is as needful for advancing 
in the science of the saints as it is for success 
in the affairs of the world. 


A SINGULAR WAY 


I T IS A most momentous thing to mould the 
character of a child. This is, when all is 
said, the object of Catholic education. 
The ultimate purpose of Catholic schools is to 
train Christian character and help the child 
to bring out the best in him. While those of 
other professions and pursuits are busy, some 
of them with material things, others with 
health,, others with literature, the teacher is 
moulding a life. In so far as a life well 
lived is more important than metal or fabric, 
or even health or letters, in so far is the pro¬ 
fession of teaching important beyond manu¬ 
facture or medicine or literature. 

But here one finds a singular inconsistency 
in so many teachers. They are interested in 
their pupils so long as they have had them in 
hand in the classes—are working, so to speak, 
on the raw material. But so soon as the child 
leaves their hands they practically forget him. 

Manufacturers of machines show endless 
solicitude in following up their finished prod¬ 
ucts. They install them properly and em- 
125 


126 


A Singular Way 

ploy experts to keep them in repair so that 
they may justify all the trouble spent in their 
construction. Should we not manifest at 
least as much solicitude for the after life of 
the Catholic graduate 

Thousands of thousands of Catholic chil¬ 
dren come out of our parish schools. Hun¬ 
dreds of boys and girls graduate from our 
colleges. We spend great sums of money, 
years of effort, patience, and pains on their 
forming and instruction. They are the fin¬ 
ished products of our parish schools. In them 
we have invested much treasure and precious 
time. What happens to them when they 
leave school? What do we do for them then? 
How do we follow them up, keep them faith¬ 
ful, guard and guide them through the dan¬ 
gerous years? 

Indeed we all, but especially all Catholic 
teachers, should be solicitous for the grad¬ 
uates of Catholic schools until they are con¬ 
firmed in right ways and settled in a worthy 
life. 


FROM WITHIN 


of the greatest drawbacks to 
I f the success of many of our Cath¬ 
olic societies/’ observed an exper¬ 
ienced pastor not long ago, ‘‘is that they seem 
to have so little energy from within. Too 
many of them are like an inert body, moved 
from without. They depend for all their mo¬ 
tion on the pastor, and unless he gives the 
impulse to action, and supplies all the mo¬ 
tive force for their work, they do nothing. 
This is quite wrong. A well-established 
Catholic society should have an energy of its 
own and be capable of inaugurating its own 
activities. It should, indeed, be under the 
guidance and direction of its pastor, who rep¬ 
resents the authority of the Church, but it 
should also have a life and a soul of its own 
and not be merely an automaton.” 

The observation is a just one. In order 
that every parish society may have this inner 
life and be capable of spontaneous action, un¬ 
der the guidance of the pastor, it is necessary 
that a circle of the members should be encour- 


127 


128 


From Within 


aged to assume the initiative and taught to 
take a share of responsibility and assume a 
part of the burden of managing the work of 
the society. This does not mean that the due 
subordination of the members and officers to 
the director should be interfered with, since 
it is well for every spiritual society to have a 
spiritual director, and he usually has author¬ 
ity and responsibility for the whole body. 
But the experience of the most successful or¬ 
ganizations has shown that it is easy to have 
in the same society a remarkable freedom of 
action and initiative on the part of the mem¬ 
bers and a very firm, helpful, and authorita¬ 
tive guidance on the part of the director. 


TOGETHER 


I F YOU wish to offer a salutary prayer and 
do a blessed work for the Church in 
America, pray and work for a greater 
union of action amongst us, to bring all our 
people together, and fling their mighty en¬ 
ergies with a common aim and steady pur¬ 
pose into the work of promoting the cause of 
Christ in America. Our union of faith and 
principle is perfect and most admirable. Pray 
for a like union of action amongst us. 

The times move with bewildering swift¬ 
ness, and bring most urgent opportunities 
crowding upon us American Catholics. In 
no land have we a more tremendous mission 
than here in our own land. The great body 
of Americans are splendid material for the 
making of fervent Christians. They are by 
nature intelligent and honest minded, up¬ 
right and clean. But the unsound and non¬ 
religious education of the schools, the with¬ 
ering agnosticism of the universities, the trim¬ 
ming indifference of the press, the plague of 
salacious books and plays, are preying on our 
129 


130 Together 

people and corrupting their native goodness. 

Conscious of their weakening morals and 
broken family life, the good citizens of Amer¬ 
ica are looking anxiously about for some way 
of salvation. They seek it vainly in preten¬ 
tious culture, in literature and education, 
science and art. There is but one organiza¬ 
tion which has within it the seeds of civic and 
religious regeneration, of whom its Founder 
said it was to be the leaven of nations, the 
salt of the earth, the light of the world. The 
Catholic Church has in itself every essential 
gift and power from God to purge and save 
our nation. But to do its work it needs the 
added circumstance of union and unison of 
effort among its members. 

The multiplication of private enterprises 
and small societies amongst us may be a sign 
not of life but of disease, and a source not of 
strength but of weakness. We must not 
fritter away our giant energies in little pigmy 
undertakings that clash and overlap. We 
must forget our individual interests and must 
leap over our parish limits and plan and pray 
and work for the Church at large and for the 
nation. Many years ago a sneering infidel 


Together 131 

exclaimed, “What a pity it is that the good 
people are so timid.” That was a false say¬ 
ing. Really good people are the bravest 
people in the world. But he would have ex¬ 
pressed the pity of it more truly, if he had 
said: “What a pity that the good people 
are not more united.” For want of unity in 
action is the greatest obstacle to the efficiency 
of the good, just as union is the strongest 
ally of organized wickedness. 


THE PROPER STAND 

M odesty and humility arc admirable 
virtues. But timidity and faint¬ 
heartedness are merely vices. It is 
not easy to draw the line between them, and 
to discern just where modesty becomes timid 
and where humility degenerates into weak¬ 
ness, but we should pray to be delivered from 
false humility as from a plague. 

Not long ago a Catholic lady whose execu¬ 
tive ability has put her at the head of an im¬ 
portant concern was speaking with some em¬ 
phasis of the easy way in which Catholics 
are content to take the background and to let 
themselves be crowded off the stage of active 
effort. “What a pity,” said she (repeating 
almost word for word, though unconsciously, 
the cynical gibe of the French infidel, “what 
a pity that the good people are so timid. 
There is no sense in taking a back seat and 
being diffident just because one is a Catholic. 
We Catholics have just as much right as any 
other class of citizens to come forward and 
occupy a prominent position. 

132 


The Proper Stand 133 

*‘As for me/’ she went on, with an ener¬ 
getic shake of the head, “I never hesitate to 
speak my mind quite clearly. I take my 
stand and choose my position, and if anyone 
comes along and seems to think that, being a 
Catholic, I have no right to be prominent, I 
turn the tables on him. ‘Well,’ I say, ‘here 
I am in possession—what are you going to do 
about it^’ and of course I find that no one 
does anything at all. If we were a little 
more assured of our position, if we took our 
abilities a little more for granted, and stood 
more firmly on our rights, we should soon find 
that others would take our rights for granted 
too, and never think of disputing them. 
What many of our Catholics need is not more 
talent nor more opportunity; they need more 
of that sturdy quality which is expressed in 
the good, homely term ‘spunk.’ ” 


VISITING THE ORPHANAGES 

S OME time ago, in speaking to a gather¬ 
ing of Catholic women, a priest who 
has given a great deal of study to social 
work made this suggestion: “Why don't you 
go to the orphanages," said he, “and make 
friends with some particular child ^ There 
are so many of these poor little ones who, 
though they are very well taken care of by 
the good Sisters in the orphanages, have no 
one in particular whom they can call their 
own friend, their very own. They are waifs 
or have lost all their relatives, and there is no 
one in the world to whom they are attached 
by any tie of special affection, and though 
they receive the most tender care from the 
Sisters, still that is given to all the other chil¬ 
dren, too, so that they never have anyone who 
is all their very own. 

“It is touching, sometimes, to go into a 
crowd of these little ones and see how eagerly 
they come forward to attract a little attention 
and get a little notice and petting. It is an 
instinct of their little hearts to try to claim 
134 


Visiting the Orphanages 135 

someone for themselves, yet their whole little 
lives they have never had a visitor who was 
all their own and never were taken to any 
one’s heart with particular and special affec¬ 
tion. Some of you ladies,” he continued, 
“might very well spare an hour now and then 
to befriend some particular child. Take 
along a little gift and spend a half-hour or so 
with the little one. You will be doing a 
work of charity, and your influence may help 
to expand the little character and be a source 
of strength in after life.” 

The suggestion was admirably taken, and 
several of the ladies expressed their deter¬ 
mination to begin at once this touching work. 
Of course, not all the orphanages may wel¬ 
come this sort of visiting, but one can at least 
apply the general principle and make friends 
with some poor little child who needs and 
wants a bit of mothering. 


IN THE SCHOOLS 


HOUGH there is much difference of prac¬ 



tice in Catholic circles so far as 


concerns the lay apostolate, yet one 
sees a remarkable unanimity of theory. 
Everyone who is at all well informed admits 
that it is of the utmost necessity that we speed 
up the processes of our people in adapting 
their activities to the new needs of the times, 
and everyone declares that we are at present 
behindhand in taking up even the most neces¬ 
sary and pressing activities. 

Everyone declares, too, who is competent 
to judge upon the subject, that the chief hope 
of the lay apostolate of the future lies in the 
Catholic schools. It is extremely difficult to 
change the outlook of the old, who were 
brought up under quite different conditions, 
and who will only partially adapt themselves 
to the surprisingly changed needs of the pres¬ 
ent. Here and there one may find a man or 
woman even of quite advanced years who is 
keen and alert to the needs of the times and 
ready to make sacrifices to meet them. But 


In the Schools 137 

for the full flower of Catholic activity one 
must look somewhat into the future, when the 
coming generation of Catholics, so many of 
whom are now enjoying the blessings of a 
Catholic education, shall be out in the lists, 
fighting the battles, unbloody but severe, of 
the old Church of God in the new and strenu¬ 
ous age. 

But if this happy anticipation is to be real¬ 
ized, it must be in large measure the work of 
the Catholic schools. It is they that are 
charged with the development of the new gen¬ 
eration. It is through their teaching that 
Catholic youngsters must learn the unselfish¬ 
ness and initiative which are sorely needed 
nowadays. If the schools rise to their oppor¬ 
tunity and responsibility all will be well with 
the Church in the United States. If they do 
not, then in all human probability we shall 
have to repeat to the next generation, and un¬ 
der yet more urgent needs, the same re¬ 
proaches and complaints that are being ut¬ 
tered to this. 

It is really a very grave and startling sit¬ 
uation which faces us. Of all people in the 
world Catholics should be the most self-sac- 


In the Schools 


138 

rificing and weariless in social and charitable 
enterprises. The poor who are anything are 
ours. The immigrants, in great part, are ours. 
Yet our activities are inadequate to save to 
the Faith the children of either. It is in the 
hands of those who have charge of Catholic 
schools to train up for us a generation of ac¬ 
tive and unselfish workers in the manifold 
ways of the lay apostolate. 

But the old methods need to be supple¬ 
mented and adapted to present conditions. 
The ways which trained the present genera¬ 
tion will not serve unchanged for that which 
is to come. 


OUR SINGULAR CHANCES 

I T REMAINS one of the oddest things in this 
oddest of worlds that so many Catholics 
are so very obtuse to their chances for 
well-doing. Even the worthiest people, with 
the best of good will, seem quite to miss the 
inspiring opportunities for service to God 
and man that wait at their door. We Cath¬ 
olics, greatest and least, have been entrusted 
with nothing less than the world’s salvation. 
By word or deed, by exhortation or example, 
by teaching the doctrine of Christ or merely 
living it, we are commissioned to spread His 
saving teachings abroad. Catholicity is to be 
in us a fertile and prolific thing which we 
are to hand on somehow to others who have 
it not and who need it. It is a torch and a 
light wherewith we are to kindle and illumine 
the world. 

This entrusting to us of Christ’s authentic 
and complete teaching is not only a heavy re¬ 
sponsibility, but it is also a very splendid op¬ 
portunity. It means that we have in our 
hands the truth for which the world is wast- 


139 


140 Our Singular Chances 

ing away, and that we are bid to give that 
truth to the world. By good example, by the 
tactful word in season, by teaching catechism 
to adults and to children—in a hundred ways 
we can spread that Faith abroad. 

But of all these ways the printed word is, 
for speed of diffusion, for breadth of in¬ 
fluence, for the power to insinuate itself 
everywhere and get read by everyone, per¬ 
haps the most inspiringly great in its power 
for good. And what an opportunity have we 
Catholics nowadays to spread the literature 
of our Faith! Some of us can pay for its 
printing, others can drop the printed word 
about, others still can write. There is work 
for all of us to do, and we are urged on to do 
it by that solemn exhortation, “Freely have 
you received, freely give!” 


POOR CHILDREN! 


W HEN John Ruskin was a little boy, 
his father, a connoisseur in art, used 
to take him on long, pleasant jour¬ 
neys, driving slowly through the loveliest 
parts of England. His mother used to make 
him memorize each day some part of Holy 
Scripture. The conversation of the family 
circle was fine and elevated, having to do with 
noble things and much tinctured with a love 
of beauty and with piety of a kind. No won¬ 
der the little boy grew up full of high enthu¬ 
siasms and ready to wage courageous war 
against the uglinesses and blindnesses of his 
fellow countrymen. Though the influence of 
Ruskin has waned and he is no longer read 
and quoted as of old, still his work was done 
in his generation, and the lofty ideals and fine 
enthusiasm for what is noble and beautiful 
which he kept from his childhood training 
had its influence on his nation and made Eng¬ 
land a more noble place to live in. 

Contrast this early training of the favored 
boy with the sights and thoughts that feed 
the minds and fancies of children nowadays. 


Poor Children 


142 

Commercialized amusements and penny- 
catching literature seem in conspiracy against 
the imagination and taste of the child. From 
the billboards, from comic supplements, from 
the movies, from cheap newspapers and illus¬ 
trated magazines, a torrent of vulgarity and 
worse floods the eager and receptive mind of 
children, and soils and stains the white sur¬ 
face of their thoughts. All this cheap and 
poisonous stuff has a strong attraction for the 
baser side of human nature, to which it is de¬ 
liberately calculated to pander for reasons of 
dollars and cents. 

Children are defenseless against vulgariz¬ 
ing influences from which even well-trained 
and solidly formed grown-up folk And it ex¬ 
ceedingly hard to guard themselves. What a 
pitiful thought, that all that is publicly base, 
flauntingly vulgar, suggestive and debasing 
in print and movies, on billboards and in 
show windows, is suffered to approach allur¬ 
ingly the pure hearts and innocent minds of 
little ones, who are quite unconscious either 
of the taint they are incurring or of the finer 
things they miss. 

Poor children! And once again, poor 
children! 


THE PASSING OF REVERENCE 


I T IS rather sad to observe that, with other 
good things of a by-gone age, reverence, 
that very noble quality of the soul, is 
also passing. The modern attitude of mind 
has very little reverence for anything. It 
would be amusing, if it were not so hugely 
unbecoming, to see how whiffets of boys and 
girls dispense themselves nowadays from the 
reverences and reticences which their elders 
carefully observed even in their maturest 
years. Everyone can talk about everything. 
Everyone can pass judgment on everything. 
The respectful attitude of mind is an an¬ 
achronism. To be up to date one must be 
more or less flippantly familiar with even the 
gravest subjects, and offhand with even the 
most serious themes. 

This frame of mind is more unbecoming 
in youngsters, but they have no monopoly of 
it. It is as fashionable among older folk. 
It chatters at teas and twitters from parlors, 
wastes good ink in bulky magazines and even 
struts in the bindings of many books. 

143 


144 Massing of Reverence 

There is a precocious smartness to much of 
the writing of the day that is most humor¬ 
ously shallow. It is quite surprising that the 
popular writers of the time, making flings at 
this or that time-honored and respectable sub¬ 
ject, do not sometimes catch a glimpse of their 
own shallowness and stop to blush and 
stammer. But if they stammer at all it is 
with eagerness to attack some new subject 
more inappropriately than they handled the 
last. As to blushing, it is with many a lost 
art. An honest blush is a sign of shame and 
reverence. 

Anyone can write about anything. Even 
theology is not exempt—to say nothing of 
philosophy—from the clumsy touch of tyros. 
A successful inventor, immensely well quali¬ 
fied, of course, for theological pronounce¬ 
ments by his really extensive knowledge of 
dynamos and motors, does not hesitate to give 
forth, dogmatically and with decision, his 
conclusions on the future life. He decides 
that there isn't any. But how could he possi¬ 
bly know*? Has he no reverence for the prin¬ 
ciples of knowledge, no respect for logic ^ 
How disgusted he would become if some the- 


The T as sing of Reverence 145 

ologian, who had never made any studies in 
physics—if one could find such a theologian 
nowadays—should gravely announce that he 
was quite satisfied that electric phenomena 
were the work of evil spirits. Yet the one 
dogmatizer would have as little reverence for 
truth and knowledge as the other. 

God give us back the gift of reverence! In 
a world where there is nothing to revere there 
is nothing worth living for, still less dying 
for. Heroic men were so because they were 
true to a great ideal and reverenced it. When 
men or times lose reverence they also lose 
their great ideals. They become poor in 
heroes. 


SHIFTING THE BLAME 

I T IS quite perfect nonsense for Catholic 
people to be so exceedingly prone to 
praise the Church for her possibilities of 
action, and then to do so little their own 
selves to show forth her true and marvelous 
efficacy. And it is almost equally absurd for 
Catholics to shift the blame for lack of action 
to the shoulders of others instead of doing 
their personal part to round out the service 
of the Church. 

High and low, the hierarchy, the clergy 
and laity, the leaders and followers, rich and 
poor, we have all a task to do. Our failure 
to do our bit of work means just so much 
irretrievable loss in the perfect round of the 
Church's action. It is no use to shift respon¬ 
sibility to anyone else or to talk of what 
migh^: be done or could or would or should be 
done if only such and such person would do 
his duty. There is one immensely important 
individual for whom we have complete re¬ 
sponsibility and over whom we have perfect 
control, and that is the person whom we eom- 
146 


Shifting the Blame 147 

monty speak of by the ninth letter of the 
alphabet. 

So far as we are concerned, our first busi¬ 
ness is to see that this individual is taking the 
interest, making the sacrifices, and doing the 
work that God and the Church expect of him. 
It is no use to be shifting the blame to this or 
that other person or persons or institution or 
society or circle or circumstances. If you and 
I are doing our full share of the work, and if 
all the “you’s” and the ‘‘Fs” among Catholics 
are following suit, then we shall have no 
need of shifting the blame, for the blame, 
like the Arab, will fold its tent and depart. 


STANDARDIZED 

HANKS in great part to that crass com¬ 
mercialism which cuts all things by an 



ugly and uniform pattern, made to 
lessen costs and increase production, the civil¬ 
ized world has become a dreadfully standard¬ 
ized and commonplace affair. Travel across 
the continent and see how the same uniform 
homeliness of dwellings, the same straitness 
of styles of dress, the same modes of build¬ 
ing, the same fashions of streets, the same 
ways of thought and of speech, even the same 
methods of plowing, of stacking hay and 
shocking corn, are monotonously prevalent 
everywhere. Our machinery, manufactured 
in certain large centers, is shipped from one 
end of the land to the other to turn out there 
the conventionalized products, whether shoes 
or ships or sealing wax, pressed wood for in¬ 
teriors or pressed brick for outsides. Our food 
is made likewise in mammoth factories, put 
upon us by wholesale advertising, labeled 
with the same trade-mark from Maine to Cal¬ 
ifornia, and sold in chains of stores, one as 


S tandardized 149 

like the other as industry and planning can 
contrive. 

Even our thoughts are made ready for us 
by syndicates, printed in proprietary news¬ 
papers and magazines, and shipped across the 
continent to every city and hamlet and cross¬ 
roads store, as conventional, as manufactured, 
as smoothly uniform and smugly common¬ 
place as the breakfast foods and hams, the 
touring cars and morris chairs that are 
flaunted for sale on their interminable pages 
of advertising that is better written than the 
stories. 

We are in the grip of a huge commercial 
combination that finds profit in making all 
things uniform and mediocre. Amusement 
is made ready in New York and tested on 
Broadway just as bacon is cured in Chicago, 
and both are shipped broadcast to Duluth and 
New Orleans, to Seattle and Cape Cod by 
huge, well-lubricated, highly profitable sales 
systems. What chance has the common 
people under such a system to express its na¬ 
tive and various preferencesA Kentucky 
mountaineer who wishes a store suit of clothes 
has to take the same style as the city clerk 


Standardized 


150 

is wearing in his office. Indeed, ordinary men 
and women are not allowed to have prefer¬ 
ences and peculiarities of taste. Public opin¬ 
ion, controlled by commercial infkiences, 
frowns upon them. Taste is standardized, 
and so is uniformly bad. 

A great deal of exulting has been done over 
the immense progress of civilization since the 
invention of steam and modern machinery. 
It is time to halt and consider the debit side 
of the ledger. We pity the Middle Ages, yet 
the common workmen of those days were able 
to build cathedrals. Their taste warped and 
their minds distracted by the commercial 
standards of this rapid age, the workmen of 
today are not even able to appreciate them. 


ONE WORD 

I T IS now the nineteenth century since the 
salvation of the world. The curse of 
Adam, which ruined mankind, was re¬ 
versed nearly nineteen hundred years ago, be¬ 
ing nailed to the wood of the Cross. For 
more than sixty generations of mankind the 
true and full teaching of Christ, His abound¬ 
ing graces, the mighty sacraments He estab¬ 
lished, the Church He set up for the salva¬ 
tion of all peoples, have been in the world. 
During the very first of these long genera¬ 
tions of men after the death of Christ, the 
Gospel, carried by the fiery zeal of the 
apostles and disciples of Our Lord, penetrated 
into the far places of the earth. So swift and 
so tremendous was its going forth to the north 
and south, the east and west of the primatial 
city of Rome, that one of those times might 
have thought that in a few more generations 
that living and mighty Faith was to conquer 
and pervade all the races of the world. 

It is astounding to read in the old chron¬ 
icles how the faithful multiplied even in far- 


One Word 


152 

off and inaccfesible nations. Like the devour¬ 
ing and rapid fire to which its Founder had 
compared it, the Faith of God spread on the 
wings of the wind and consumed the distant 
lands. 

Bearing in mind this immense vitality of 
the Christian Faith, its power of endless 
spread, its universal appeal, and the rapidity 
with which it bid fair to possess and trans¬ 
form the earth, look about you today, at home 
and abroad, and ask: How has that ancient 
promise been realized? There are in the 
world today some three hundred and fifty 
millions of Catholics, in the midst of eleven 
hundred and fifty millions of non-believers. 
In our own country, where the Faith is free 
and propaganda unrestricted, some seventy 
millions of our fellow countrymen, it is said, 
do not even belong to a Christian denomina¬ 
tion. Why has not the earth brought forth 
more fruits of justice? Why are so many 
still, here and in other lands, ignorant of 
Christ’s teaching? 

One may find the answer in the one word 
“zeal.” It was zeal which drove the apostles 
and their disciples over land and sea to preach 


One Word 153 

the Word. Zeal sent a Francis Xavier to 
renew those wonders in modern days and bap¬ 
tize with his own hand hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of pagans. It was zeal that set 
Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola, each 
in his own age, to renew the spirit of the 
faithful and send missionaries to the heathen. 
Zeal called St. Vincent de Paul from his 
father’s steading to the courts of princes, and 
sent King Louis from his court to the agony 
of the Crusades. 

We shall never convert the earth nor re¬ 
new the achievements of old times without 
this mighty zeal for the salvation of souls. 
In your prayers, in your desires, ask, for 
others and for your own soul, this fire that 
can light and warm a world. 


IN WORSE CASE 


S OME time ago, in the city of Chicago, 
two little children lay at point of death 
from poison. They had been carried 
thither to have the services of a specialist in 
such cases. They were surrounded by expert 
ministrations. Everything possible to human 
skill was being done to snatch them back from 
the jaws of death. But more remarkable 
than all this immediate effort and care was 
the interest of the great public, which, 
through the columns of sedulous journals, 
watched unceasingly to see every turn for 
the better or the worse in the state of the lit¬ 
tle sufferers. Bulletins were sought of their 
condition. The chances of their recovery 
were weighed pro and con. There was no 
end to the interest and attention aroused. 
The daily news of their condition crowded 
from the first columns even the news of for¬ 
eign broils and domestic crimes. 

While these little ones thus were sur¬ 
rounded with so much interest, tenderness, 
and care, which their pitiful state deserved, 
154 


In Worse Case 


155 

many thousands of little ones in the crowded 
slums of the same great city, and in other 
cities throughout the world, were in a far 
worse case than they. The two little sufferers 
were threatened with death, but for a child 
many evils are worse than physical death. 
The poison of bad surroundings is far more 
of an evil than any venom to the body. 
Vicious environment, grinding poverty, the 
miasma of criminal influences—is it not far 
worse for a child to grow up in such surround¬ 
ings than to die in its innocence, not having 
known the temptations nor having been 
touched by the corruptions of the world? 

Yet the poor little ones of the slums are 
forgotten or disregarded by those same senti¬ 
mentalists who thrilled at the news of a 
trifling gain in the condition of the poisoned 
children. They pity the sensationally af¬ 
flicted and are cold to the obscure and terrible 
misfortunes of those who stifle in the dark 
places of great towns. In the one case their 
pity is impotent and barren, for who by in¬ 
terest or sympathy could aid at all the labor¬ 
ing hearts of the little ones or their feverish 
bodies struggling to throw off the creeping 


In Worse Case 


156 

poison*? But if there were enough pity and 
indignation about the sad state of the little 
ones whom society is stifling by its injustice 
and abuses, that same pity and wrath would 
raise a storm that would sweep such abuses 
from the face of the civilized earth, 


THE RUSH CURE 


« YT children begin to com- 

\/\ plain of being unwell/' said a 
modern mother not long ago, “I 
hurry up and give them a tonic and then start 
them out somewhere to do something or other. 
As soon as ever they stop they fall ill. It 
seems that keeping on the go is the only thing 
that saves people's nerves nowadays from 
collapsing. Quiet! The rest cure! What 
young folks seem to demand now is the rush 
cure!” 

She was no philosopher, this modem 
mother we speak of. She was merely a suc¬ 
cessful experimentalist. When her children 
grew fretful and complained, she had a cer¬ 
tain remedy that always worked. Therefore 
she was quite sure that because it worked it 
was good. 

On the other hand, there was that other ob¬ 
server, a philosopher this time, but not a prac¬ 
tical one, who protested violently at a Cath¬ 
olic meeting where the good people present 
were trying very hard to organize some Cath- 
157 


158 The Rush Cure 

olic activities which were to offset and coun¬ 
teract certain very harmful non-Catholic ef¬ 
forts for the entertainment of Catholic youth 
among the dwellers in a congested slum 
where Catholics were greatly in the majority. 
While the rest were discussing dances and 
movies and assemblies he rose to protest. 
“You are rowing with the current/’ he said, 
“you are weakly yielding to the faults of the 
times. Why not work against this modern 
tendency to go out from home at night. Why 
not start a movement to keep these people at 
home^?” 

Both these people went a bit too far in one 
direction. The practical mother yielded to 
the impulse of the times and succeeded, but 
not in a way worth while. But the reforming 
philosopher, had his theories been tried by 
practice, would have made an utter and dis¬ 
mal failure. The right way is in the middle. 
One must unfortunately allow for the mod¬ 
ern spirit of rush and stir. But a little wise 
guidance will give it good direction and a bit 
of prudent restraint will keep it duly bridled. 


THE PERVADING PASSION 

T he pet madness of our age is speed. To 
move fast is the first requisite for 
popularity. Amusements, vehicles, 
ideas—what you will that would capture the 
popular fancy—^must have dash, vim, swift¬ 
ness. We have gotten used to the exhilara¬ 
tion of moving swiftly. How tame to us 
would be the most breathless excitements of 
our forbears. To them a dizzy dash at ten 
miles an hour behind a good trotting horse 
brought blood to the heart and color to the 
cheeks. Ten miles an hour! For our 
vehicles, driven by explosions, that would be 
an inexpressibly fatiguing slowness. We 
creep at twenty miles an hour—we are mildly 
interested at thirty. At sixty or so we really 
begin to feel the exhilaration of speed. 

We do not quite realize the effects which 
this terrific acceleration, which goes into 
many departments of human life, is having 
on our social structure. Everything moves 
in a fashion that would have bewildered our 
ancestors. If a trotting horse was their sym- 
159 


i6o The Pervading. Passion 

bol of speed, ours is a racing car, and soon 
will be an aeroplane. There must be a dash, 
bang, and whiz about everything that wants 
attention. 'Tep” is the synonym for popu¬ 
larity. If you can put speed into anything— 
writing, music, art, amusements, athletics— 
you can be sure of popular interest and atten¬ 
tion until something newer and speedier 
comes along. 

We are going fast, living fast, dying fast. 
The bewildering thing about it all is, that all 
portents point to a still speedier age to fol¬ 
low. Man must keep up to the pace of his 
own inventions. The gasoline motor and the 
improved steam engine, the former especially 
—the telegraph and the high-speed printing 
presses have made it impossible to live slowly 
or leisurely unless one cuts away from the age 
altogether. But there is talk of aeroplanes that 
will make their three hundred miles an hour 
and turn the Atlantic into a lake that one can 
cross in a single day. With such pacemakers, 
at what rate will the next generation travel 
When it was proposed, by means of the then 
new invention of the steam locomotive, that 
it might be possible to go at the rate of thirty 


The Pervading Passion i6l 

miles an hour, it is said that one eminent 
specialist gave it as his opinion that at that 
rate of speed the human heart would stop 
beating. 

The specialists of this age are wiser. He 
would be a bold man who would fix limits 
nowadays. Indeed, it is very much to be 
doubted whether the present-day human heart 
would stop at any attainable speed! 


HER PROPER PLACE 


T he Catholic Church is the mother of 
modern civilization. She was the 
cause of its beginnings; she bore its 
infant weakness in her bosom; she saved it 
from the early and the late barbarian inva¬ 
sions; she brought it well on along the ways 
of its adolescence. The pitiful religious re¬ 
volt of the sixteenth century tore a great part 
of the Christian civilized world from the 
unity of the Catholic Faith, and impartial 
students are more and more conceding how 
great was the misfortune to the progress of 
civilization itself. 

Those who read carefully the best and 
most recent historians will realize how closely 
the labor troubles of the present are connected 
with the false principles of the so-called re¬ 
formers, who tore the unity of the Church 
and set at conflict labor and capital, the privi¬ 
leged classes and the poor, in a way that has 
wounded civilization and still jars society 
with dreadful conflicts. 

162 


Her Proper Place 163 

But one of the hugest misfortunes which 
have come from the unhappy religious revo¬ 
lution is the shaking of the Church from her 
place of primacy as mistress and protectress 
of the sciences and the arts, and chief guar¬ 
dian and helper of learning. In her monas¬ 
teries was treasured and kept the classic lit¬ 
erature. Her great universities were the 
foster mothers of learning. She was great 
in secular science besides being the sole keeper 
and appointed guardian of the science that is 
from heaven. 

What we should remember and dwell upon 
at this time is the truth that this eminence 
of the Church in art and learning is her nor¬ 
mal and proper state and that her dispos¬ 
session is an abnormal and a wrongful thing. 
It is right for the Church to be the chief 
patroness and protector of art and science, 
because she watched over their beginnings, 
nursed them to vigor and gave them the 
strength of Christian principle, the beauty of 
Christian thought. It is useful, because 
Christianity is the noblest inspirer of art and 
science, and because art and science are the 
precious auxiliaries of worship and as power- 


;i64 Her Proper Place 

ful when they aid the Faith as they are dan¬ 
gerous and insidious when they attack it. 

There was some excuse for Catholics not 
to hold the pre-eminence in literature, science, 
art, when they were a persecuted and dis¬ 
tracted people, driven over the face of the 
earth. But it is time for us to reassert the 
queenship of the Spouse of Christ. Her 
proper place is at the summit of all that is 
beautiful and good. 


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